"When I am not writing, which is most of the time… it is as though I am fasting. I am preparing myself. In other words, I no longer know what it is not to be consumed by writing. I anticipate sitting down with a story the way certain women anticipate lovers—with my breath held still, my knees shaking, a tidy room, a clean petticoat, and with no idea how the evening will turn out—in this case the book"