It turns out that my memory is just not that great, so for specific scenes with people doing stuff, sometimes I'd have the details all wrong or I couldn't remember what happened exactly, so I just let that be.

This is odd, but there are certain things that are really embarrassing to talk about - one is my job and the success that I've had in it, and the other is money.

But that incessant drive to be out there in the literary universe that was important to me when I was in my twenties, like going to a Paris Review party or whatever, that seems totally irrelevant now.

What genre it falls under is only of interest later.

Strange story about Degas. He hated women, didn't want to be with them. Yet he spent much of his life painting them. He had seen his father maltreat his mother, must have had a deep fear that he'd do the same thing.

My mother is a tall woman - as is everyone in my family. At her prime, she stood 5 feet 9 inches, which is quite unusual for a woman born in 1922.

My husband gave up all his work to stay at home with the kids, and we split all the duties at home. I do all the boring stuff - like pay the bills, and he does all the exercising for both of us, which I'm very grateful for... I thank him for it regularly.

In this age of social media, it is easy to punch out a phrase 'thoughts are with the family' when something bad occurs, and at times, it is insincere.