Until A Friend Or Relative Has Applied

Sometimes I'll Spend An Hour Writing A Tiny Email. I Work On It Until I've Created The Illusion That I've Dashed It Off In Three Minutes. If I Make A Typo, I Let It Stand. Sometimes In Fact I Correct The Typo Without Thinking, And Then I Back Up And Retype The Typo So That It'll Look More Casual. I Don't Know Why.

I've Never Been A Fast Reader. I'm Fickle; I Don't Finish Books I Start; I Put A Book Aside For Five, Ten Years And Then Take It Up Again.

Some After-the-fact Storytelling Is Inevitable, And, In Fact, Very Good And Useful. But Then We Want Always To Be Able To Enrich The Stories, Or Maybe Change The Stories With A Fresh Infusion Of Specificity.

Updike Was The First To Take The Penile Sensorium Under The Wing Of Elaborate Metaphorical Prose.

For Me, As A Beginning Novelist, All Other Living Writers Form A Control Group For Whom The World Is A Placebo.