The Writer’s Life Is A Life Of

He Wanted This Someone To See How Much He Hurt.

Here Was A Torture That Greek Inventors Of The Feast And The Stone Had Omitted From Their Hades: The Blanket Of Self-deception. A Lovely Warm Blanket As Far As It Covered The Soul In Torment, But It Never Quite Covered Everything.

Fiction That Isn't An Author's Personal Adventure Into The Frightening Or The Unknown Isn't Worth Writing For Anything But Money.

Everything He'd Done With Regard To Her In The Last Three Years Had Been Calculated To Foreclose The Intensely Personal Sort Of Talks They'd Had When He Was Younger: To Get Her To Shut Up, To Train Her To Contain Herself, To Make Her Stop Pestering Him With Her Overfull Heart And Her Uncensored Self. And Now That The Training Was Complete And She Was Obediently Trivial With Him, He Felt Bereft Of Her And Wanted To Undo It.

He Had A Happy Canine Way Of Seeking Approval Without Seeming Insecure.