I've Been Reading Peter Straub Since I

You Can Recognize In Your Own Reading Habits What Writers Are Doing That Works And What Doesn't. I'm Becoming Much More Aware Of That After Reading A Decade Of Student Stories.

Plot And Scene Are Still The Hardest Things For Me, Though I Think They're The Building Blocks Of What Makes A Story Work.

Our Sense Of Self Is A Kind Of Construct. It Is In Some Ways Like A Novel, And It's Like A Fabric Of Fictions That We Patch Together From Memory.

What If You Believed That Everything In Life Was Like A Prize? What If You Thought Of The World As A Big Random Drawing, And You Were Always Winning Things, The World Offering Them Up With A Big Grin, Like An Emcee's: Here You Go, Hollis. Here Is A Motorcycle. Here Is A Little Boy Who Loves You. Here Is A Weird Experience, Here Is Something Bad That You Should Mull Over Because It Will Make You A Better Person. What If You Could Think That Life Was This Free Vacation You'd Won, And You Won Just Because You Happened To Be Alive?

The Happiest I Have Ever Been Is In The Life That I Led With My Wife And Kids.