I think part of giving female characters their full humanity on the page includes letting them be ugly and dangerous and selfish in their behavior, wherever it might stem from.
I want to have hope, but I’m also suspicious of all hopeful things. [Laughs.]
This world we live in is terribly brutal to animals, to humans, to beings of all kinds, isn’t it? Why pussy foot around?
“Surveillance and espionage are part of everyday lives now.”
People are bothered by all of this, and I admit I am both irritated and amused by it. I think I like the bother, the trouble. It makes us ask — what is a novel?
Death and So Forth – Gordon Lish
These might be old tricks (for Lish), but they are still good tricks.
But my inner critic is the one who writes in the first place.
This connects to an anxiety I’ve had since childhood about wanting to record everything that’s ever happened, which is perhaps simply a fear of my own mortality, as well as the mortality of everything in this beautiful world.
“I am thinking about the body a lot and all of the time. The body is where the story starts.”
Perhaps this is Fate, in that our interdependence is inescapable, that we always affect each other.