"I don't make notes, and I think if I did I would find so much comfort in them that I wouldn't write the book. I think about my work when I drive or run or wash dishes. I've found the best thing is if I can talk to somebody about my work.

"I love the story E.L. Doctorow tells. He didn't have an idea for a book, so he started writing about the wall and then the window and the garden, and the next thing he knew, he had written 'Ragtime.' Never in a million years would that happen to me. If I don't know where I'm going when I sit down to write, I don't get anywhere."