There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path.
It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
Whenever I'm with my [teenager], I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
For books I want to keep reading, it's definitely the voice. It must be a voice I've never heard before, and it must have its own particular intelligence. By 'voice,' I don't mean vernacular. It has to have its own particular history and world that it inhabits.
I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
I just feel very lucky to be able to write fiction because I think, otherwise, I would have had to spend a fortune on a psychiatrist - and I still wouldn't get 1/100th of what I get writing fiction.
