There Is Nothing As Tentative

No Woman That I Know Is Capable Of Leaving Her Child Down For Thirty Seconds. She Can't Walk Away Without Making Sure That Everything Is Absolutely As Secure And Safe For Her Child As Can Be.

There Is Something Wonderful About A Death, How Everything Shuts Down, And All The Ways You Thought You Were Vital Are Not Even Vaguely Important. Your Husband Can Feed The Kids, He Can Work The New Oven, He Can Find The Sausages In The Fridge, After All. And His Important Meeting Was Not Important, Not In The Slightest.

I Became A Full-time Writer In 1993 And Have Been Very Happy, Insofar As Anybody Is, Since.

The Writing Day Can Be, In Some Ways, Too Short, But It's Actually A Long Series Of Hours, For Months At A Time, And There Is A Stillness There.

You Write A Book And You Finish The Book. That's Your Job Done, Right? You Win The Booker And You Have A Whole New Job. You Have To Be The Thing, Right? So Instead Of Writing The Story, You Somehow Are The Story. And That I Found That Sort Of Terrible.