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I like to believe that I don't think of myself as a writer. I am an amateur. Back when I was teaching, I wrote when I could. Weekends were good typewriter time. Now, it's whenever I feel there's something to be put on paper. I don't care what time it is, though I always write in the notebooks at night.

Honestly, I find writing to be a very lonely job.

You know you lose a lot of social skills if you're a writer. You spend too long alone. And its forced me to address that.

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

I used to have a real passion for writing, but not so much anymore - probably because I do too much of it.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but not a lonely one. When you write, your world is populated by the characters you invent, and you feel those people filling your life.

One of the things that made me try writing novels was I could take time off to be with the kids. That's the practical side of what I love about the writing life.

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life.