A Small Profit Is Better Than A

Furthermore, Even If Ideas Were Gettable - Say, Stacked In A Secluded Cave Like The Dead Sea Scrolls - I Wouldn't Go There. An 'idea,' Especially One Adhered To From Start To Finish, Can Be Disastrous For A Compelling Piece Of Fiction.

As I Get Older I Find Myself Thinking It All Begins With Shakespeare.

I Live In Cullowhee, North Carolina. That's Where I Teach, At Western Carolina University. That Region Is Where My Family Has Lived For A Long Time And That Region Is My Landscape.

I Love Learning About Different Dialects And I Own All Sorts Of Regional And Time-period Slang Dictionaries. I Often Browse Through Relevant Ones While Writing A Story. I Also Read A Lot Of Diaries And Oral Histories.

On The Last Drafts, I Focus On The Words Themselves, Including The Rub Of Vowels And Consonants, Stressed And Unstressed Syllables. Yet Even At This Stage I'm Often Surprised. A Different Ending Or A New Character Shows Up And I'm Back To Where I Began, Letting The Story Happen, Just Trying To Stay Out Of The Way.