You don’t quite realize it when you sit down to write how gratuitously masochistic it can be. You sit down and really, what you have to work with is the history and memorialized record of your own self and all that compounds it; the trauma, the insecurity, the doubt, the rejection. The writing, in an attempt to mitigate those feelings, only makes them worse. Look at Clare and Irene, with as much potential as anyone (probably more than Helga), each with pieces of my self split into the two halves of each other. How could I discount the romance and love one has for herself in the face of simultaneous loathing? But, once they are created they are not mine; when my husband has an affair, he is not mine; when I must desert myself from my family, they are no longer mine. So funny how we see characters, though, come to life beyond what I could ever admit is my own design. I have spent so much time moving back and forth between critics, readers, and the characters themselves, all begging me for answers. The biggest: did Irene push Clare? Well I just don’t know. Because if Irene pushed Clare she pushed half of herself, and she pushed me too. And that’s a terrible thing to take responsibility for.

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