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So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.

That's why I haven't been so anxious. But now, lots of people write and say, 'I want to find out what you're doing.' So I know that this book will enlighten them.

Sometimes the only way I know how to work through something is by writing a poem. And sometimes I get to the end of the poem and look back and go, 'Oh, that's what this is all about,' and sometimes I get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

If you do an experiment and it gives you what you did not expect, it is a discovery.

I began to do this thing I do of giving myself a class every day, and trying to experiment and push further. I don't mean to say I knew everything, because I didn't, but I would do what I knew and then push beyond that and see what else I could find.

I like the idea of finding parts that I know I can do but I don't totally understand them right away.

You discover yourself through the research of your work.

I locate that special problem in a character and then try to understand it. That's the genesis of all my work.

Even in times when it's difficult to figure out, how do you go forward, art - and books - always help.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.