For decades I have tried to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding many marine creatures, though most have held tightly to their secrets. One animal that keeps me pondering is the shark. Spellbound by these enigmatic animals since I first encountered them in New England, I never tire of watching their special blend of power and grace.
Every morning, I go off to a small studio behind my house to write. I try to ignore all email and phone calls until lunchtime. Then I launch into the sometimes frantic busy-ness of a tightly scheduled day.
It's risky to show poor Americans. People see it as a downer. But I really wanted to make a tightly wound piece of storytelling that also happened to explode the myth of American affluence.
You have to keep your sanity as well as know how to distance yourself from it while still holding onto the reins tightly. That is a very difficult thing to do, but I'm learning.
With a tennis racket strapped tightly to her hiking pack, Martina Navratilova began her ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. The tennis legend had visions of celebrating at the summit of Africa's highest peak by hitting a couple balls to see how far they might fly in the thin air at 19,341 feet.
With those people, I'm very far apart, because I believe that government access to communications and stored records is valuable when done under tightly controlled conditions which protect legitimate privacy interests.
I would rather read a poorly structured story that has fresh ideas than a tightly structured one with cliches.
In America, music is more tightly categorized.
I had a tightly knit group of female friends in elementary school - we called ourselves the Sensational Six.
While I was living in New York a friend and I flew to Miami and travelled through a storm. I could see lightning strikes through the window. I grabbed my friend's hand tightly and kept repeating: 'We're going to die! We're going to die!' Thank goodness he was there as I don't know what I'd have done if I was on my own.
