If you asked Betty what it’s like to live with me while I’m writing, she’d probably just shake her head. Sometimes she talks about the buzz of contentment that emanates from my side of the room when things are going swimmingly, but other times (when things are not going so well) I am a snarky person to live with. If the book is happy, I’m happy. When the book is not happy, neither am I.
But the one thing that’s coming up for me a lot with this book is why on god’s green earth I decided to do this. It’s not as if our lives aren’t public enough (because they are). It’s not because I got paid so much I couldn’t resist. And at the end of the day, I’m still an introvert; I don’t do it for the attention. I’m not sure what that leaves me with. I’m not so kind and self-sacrificing that I do it for the good of others; that’s my mother’s job. That said, I certainly don’t expect to regret it, either; I like writing, and I like seeing my writing published. But some days I wonder why I don’t just write novels like a normal person, shrouding the mysteries of my psycho-sexual development in characters that seem like me but aren’t.