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" The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong. "

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" One day it hit me: Truest friends, God bless their hearts, could not care less. They love you, they're pleased you're getting married and, ultimately, they don't give a fig how you get it done. "

Lynn Coady

Day

Care

" What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far. "

" Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs. "

" I think authors like me are always struggling with the idea that they should have a brand and a Facebook author page and they should get Twitter accounts. I don't know what to do with them. "

" The creative process taps into our deepest subconscious, and we are each of us sex-crazed - products of a shame-based Judeo-Christian culture that has irrevocably warped us all to varying degrees. "

Lynn Coady

Creative

Process

" Audience participation can often inject a dose of adrenalin into your average dial-tone literary reading, especially if a handful of audience-members are mentally unhinged, and let's face it - you can always depend on at least one crackpot at these things. "

" Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist. "

" I still find the idea of a research-heavy or historical novel daunting. That's something I've had in mind for a while: like, would you research for a year and then start writing? I sit down, and I just don't know how to write it. "

" As a novelist, you have to pick your battles. You are tired. You have begun to experience the first ominous tinglings of carpal tunnel syndrome. You wake up in the middle of the night with both hands lying across your chest like a couple of plucked bird carcasses, dead of all sensation. "

" The fundamentals for me are character and conflict. I put character first because readers will be indifferent to conflict if they are indifferent to the character who is experiencing it. "

Lynn Coady

Fundamentals

Conflict

" To buy dinner transmits that you feel time spent in your date's company has been a pleasure and a privilege. "

" This is not necessarily the answer people want, but ultimately, I think writing is an amoral process. Your ultimate responsibility is to the truth of the story you're trying to tell. "

" True adulthood occurs the moment we grasp that the people who raised us do not exist solely for our comfort and reassurance. From that point on, the steady stream of unconditional love and support we've expected from them all our lives has to flow both ways. "

" Most don't live inside their heads as a writer does, having conversations with her own ideas. "

" You can't really go into TV thinking, 'Maybe I can make a few bucks doing this thing I'm only kind of interested in to support my one true love, which is prose fiction.' I think you have to love what you're doing to do it well. "

" Here it is, 2011, and I feel zero shame when I tell you I would like to marry my smartphone. It is a handful of pure delight. "

" We allow ourselves to unclench when we're home with our families, which is one of the truly wonderful advantages of human intimacy. "

" You know the actor's nightmare is getting up onstage and not being prepared? I think the writer's nightmare is giving a reading and somebody standing up and saying, 'That's not your story.' "

" Sometimes I pine for the era of Miss Manners, when there were hard and fast rules dictating a well-bred individual's behaviour in any given situation. "

" Guys know how to read each other's signals. They know how to telegraph love for one another without throwing their arms around one another. "

" Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it's because they don't have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing. "

Lynn Coady

Over

Writing

" I decided a long time ago to be myself and not worry too much about cultivating some kind of personality that didn't feel natural or true to who I am. "

" When you're not sure your anger is justified, the thing to do is ask yourself exactly where it's coming from. "

" The one thing I've always done as an author is talk to my publicists. Because they have all the best stories - and they have all the dirt on other, more famous and important writers. They're not supposed to talk about it, but sometimes you can get awesome little tidbits from them. "

" There was a time when I thought dudes had friendship all figured out. The focus on eating things in front of giant screens, pretending to punch one another, competing over who can utter the grossest and most profane personal insults imaginable - this struck me as the very apex of human social exchange. "

" I went into the world confident my tea training would open many doors. And I did particularly well with the Irish and fellow Nova Scotians over 60. But this only got me so far. It took a long time to cultivate the tricks of easy social interaction. "

Lynn Coady

World

Time

" While Person A might believe the kitchen counter provides a reasonable surface on which to place one's balled-up sweatsocks post-gym, Person B - about to cut up some vegetables on that same counter, perhaps for a meal intended to be shared with Person A - can only read the sockball as a message that says, 'Hi! I have contempt for you!' "

" Filtering can be a very good thing when it comes to human relationships and familial harmony. Yeah, filtering is often an absolute necessity. "

" The thing about relationships is, the stronger they get, the more rapidly the realm of romance starts to overlap with the domestic. "

Lynn Coady

Stronger

Relationships

" I would never have thought my collection of short stories would win the Giller. "