In The End, Fiction Is

At Least In My Case, A Very Simple, Regular, Happy Life Makes For Better Writing.

I'm A Writer, Not An Actor. I Want To Write Rather Than Perform. I'm Looking Forward To Disappearing For A While.

As With Most Of My Work, I Started From The Abstract, From Research, Building An Intellectual Model That Slowly Became Internalized When The Characters Came Alive. It's Fascinating What Happens To The Model You've So Assiduously Assembled When Characters Are Allowed To Run Rampant: Things You Thought Essential Are Broken And Other Things Are Vastly Improved.

Sex Makes Things Strained. There Are Lovely People In Oneida, But Everyone Was Married To Everyone Else. And You Had Fathers And Mothers Watching Their Twelve-year-old Daughters Being Inducted Into The Group Marriage By Sixty-five-year-old Men. There Are Creepy Aspects Of A Lot Of Intentional Communities When It Comes To Sex.

The Darkest Period Of My Life, So Far, Arrived The Summer I Was Pregnant With My Eldest Son. The Future Was Growing In Me With All Of Its Terrifying Unpredictability, And I Found Myself Anxious, Unable To Work And Woefully At Sea.