When I Was Writing My First Two

I Feel Like People Who Criticize Authors For Being Self-promotional Fail To Recognize That A Lot Of Times Their Ability To Continue Writing Hinges On Sales And Recognition. Some Of It Is For Fun, Some Of It Is For Ego, But A Lot Of It Is Just Writers Trying To Ensure Longevity To Their Career.

We All Stood And Gathered Our Backpacks And I Looked At The Floor Around My Chair To Make Sure I Hadn’t Dropped Anything. I Was Terrified Of Unwittingly Leaving Behind A Scrap Of Paper On Which Were Written All My Private Desires And Humiliations. The Fact That No Such Scrap Of Paper Existed, That I Did Not Even Keep A Diary Or Write Letters Except Bland, Earnest, Falsely Cheerful Ones To My Family (we Lost To St. Francis In Soccer, But I Think We’ll Win Our Game This Saturday; We Are Working On Self-portraits In Art Class, And The Hardest Part For Me Is The Nose) Never Decreased My Fear.

I Think There Is Still Pressure To Marry. I Think There Is Still Pressure To Have Children. If You're Middle Or Upper Class, Those Pressures Exist At A Later Age Now.

I Wanted My Life To Start - But In Those Rare Moments When It Seemed Like Something Might Actually Change, Panic Shot Through Me.

You Know, The Point Of A Novel - Or To Me, The Point Of A Novel, The Gift Of A Novel Is To Go Really Deeply Inside People's Lives And Inside Their Personal Experiences.