Someone once told me that fiction writers construct their stories from a personal mosaic of life experience, casual observation, and imagination. I have found this to be true of own my writing (though for me, the hodgepodge can feel more like the makings of a bad dream), especially when it comes to crafting characters. 

I start by conjuring a mental sketch of someone I knew once upon a time. Okay, I am going to stop right there, because that confession makes me seem devious and unimagina...

As I prepare to launch my third novel, The Floater, later this year, I need to say a few words about the charged topics of sex, race and class. You may have noticed that my female protagonists aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to men or sex. (And “floater” Norma Reyes will be no exception.) I realize that many best-sellers feature a nonthreatening female protagonist who could be a poster child for Ladies Home Journal, but my women are a bit sloppier than that.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Authors (at least up-and-coming ones like myself) chase reviews like servicemen’s wives and girlfriends yearned for letters from their loved ones during World War II. We crave your feedback; it tells us our precious darlings are still alive somewhere, and haven’t been gunned down in a hailstorm of public indifference. Yes, an author’s biggest challenge is launching her book across enemy lines—that is, sending it off to do battle on the bloody soil...

I am depressed—and frightened. I am on Page 102 of Lisa Genova’s Still Alice, and I’m not sure I want to go on. Alice is about to tell her grown children about her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. For the first 101 pages I’ve been asking myself, “Could I have early onset Alzheimer’s?” I forget common words (or the wrong one slips out of my mouth) all the time. I can’t count how many times I have been unable to place a familiar face (usually a neighbor’s) in an unfamiliar setting (li...

Okay, technically I was 47 when I began writing Later With Myself: The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz, one year after the story idea smacked me in the face, unwittingly, in the form of learning about my deceased half-brother and the Secret Life of Daddy. But I will be turning 50 in less than two weeks, so I think this warrants a pause, a breath, and a few sage words.

To be quite honest, as recently as several months ago, the prospect of turning 50 was dispiriting to me. It felt as if my l...