Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.
Sadly, for those who are busy sawing off their feet to escape the trap of cliches, every story is chock full of them and sometimes depends on an especially hoary one.
To me, people's lives and loves are entwined with their characters, natures and circumstances. I regard all general advice with skepticism.
I didn't want readers to think I was asking to be praised for taking care of my wife while she was ill. Lots of people are heroic, more heroic than I was, when faced with the suffering of someone they love.
Relationships, it seems to me, are timeless. What works between two people always works; what doesn't is always troublesome. Over time, people learn - or not - how to negotiate what's difficult, but that doesn't mean the misfit has gone away entirely.
New York is a much more bourgeois city, more of a tourist attraction than a muscular metropolis. It's lost moxie and a rough energy, while gaining grace and friendliness. I love both versions of the city, but I wish the prosperous Manhattan would become a little easier for young people to afford.
It's hard to conceive of someone who could work for at least a few hours each day for months and years on the same story without it being close enough to their life experience to fuel their commitment.
Arthur Conan Doyle was entranced by the notion of a brilliant detective who can deduce everything a stranger has been up to from the merest clue, and yet can't have a trusting relationship with his closest friend.
