No. That must be another Stacey Richter.

It's okay with me. Sorry to get all philosophical on your ass, but maybe the question your question implies is if it's okay not to be okay... Usually it isn't, I find. When people say, "Are you okay?" they kinda want you to say yes, at least if we're talking about the realm of emotions. (I've found people to be incredible eager to help when there's a physical emergency, when the okay in question refers to the alive, not-bleeding-profusely or injured-internally-sort of okay.) Sometimes, obviously, asking after someone's okayness is simply a way of saying hello, as in, How ya doing? However, I'm sure I'm not the first person to point out the rudeness of asking a question for which there's only one acceptable answer. If you really want to know if someone is "okay" (i.e. not cracking up), it's probably better to ask in a way that leaves the possibilities open, such as, "How're you holding up?" This, however, implies some responsibility on the part of the asker: if the answer is "not good," the asker can't really say, "bummer dude," unless she's trying to bolster her reputation as a sociopath; the question implies that the asker is prepared to be helpful in a concrete way. Often, this is not the case. That's why "Are you okay?" is a rude, stupid question, on par with the wait-person's line, "Is everything tasting delicious?" Which always makes me want to say, "Fuck you, you fucking fuck," though usually I simply tell them that everything is okay.

Speedy Gonzales, the racially stereotyped rodent!

I think it's better to have love in your life, but I'd rather be in love.

I'm talking about romantic love of course, the either /or love, since you can remain devoted to your dog and/or your mother and still fall for someone else. Your dog can even stay in the room while you have sex (depending on the dog). I like to believe there are people out there who manage to skirt the either/or nature of romantic love—bohemian libertines who do whatever moves them without leaving destruction and ruin in their wake—but I've never actually met anyone like this. I’ve only met people with rubble crashing behind them. This does not look so good to me and makes me value love in one’s life even more (which is what being in love turns into with time anyway). However, I am a white middle-class suburban lady, so what the fuck do I know?

Let’s take a minute to review being in love. Yes, it’s incredibly exhilarating, enlivening, and fun, but it gains a lot of its luster in retrospect. While it’s happening, it’s incredibly disruptive, self-disintegrating, and so terrifying that people go to great lengths to avoid it. Maybe you've noticed the symptoms among your friends—picking the wrong person, running away, sticking with a dud, weird obsessing, and refusing to see what’s in front of their faces—even as they insist that love is what they want. Real love is hard to find, hard to get, and hard to keep. I am trying to write the sentence, “It’s probably worth keeping, usually, even though you have to give up the possibility of falling in love EVER AGAIN,” but I’m having trouble. Meow. I guess most of us face either/or love with some grief and ambivalence. This must be why at least a third of all works of fiction touch on it; cf. John Updike.

Oy, yes. I pick names by impulse or instinct, but I do use a few guidelines and tools. I try to write down names I like when I come across them—usually they have some sort of interesting sound thing going on, like "Carla Laser." If these turn out to be the names of real people, I change or recombine them—it's fiction, after all. I also want my characters to have names that are plausible for their age and era, so I almost always consult the Social Security Administration’s official website, which lists popular baby names by decade going back to the 1880’s. Names are subject to fashion like everything else: in the 1950’s, mothers named their baby girls Barbara and Mary, while in the 1990’s they went for Jessica or Taylor. Choosing one that fits the ages of your characters is a nice touch. It also make me happy, since anachronistic and vaguely portentous names drive me crazy, as do names that occur in fiction waay more than in life. Please do not name your character Claire.

For last names, try looking at lists of names wherever they may lurk--indexes, yearbooks, the membership roles of professional or charitable organizations. Make a list of the ones that feel right; change a letter if you want, wait a day, then pick. Here, too, you could try to focus on the era or background of your character, but be careful not to get too close. You don't want to accidentally pick the name of someone well-known in a field that overlaps with your character; if you call a biologist Lamarck there will be some snickers, unless he goes on and on about his name, which I will talk about below.

Names have an implied backstory regarding what kind of mother or family your character came from, and you can muse about this while you decide which one to use. In my opinion though, it’s best to leave this backstory out of what you’re writing. (“Kelly’s mother gave her the name because she was conceived on the 9th hole of a golf course, and her affection for greenery and outdoor coupling never wavered…”) Or if you do use it, be sure to make it advance some other aspect of the story, rather than making it an indwelling on name and identity. Dwelling on how a character got her name is common, but I’m always suspicious that it’s a veiled reference to the author’s process, and I find this distracting or boring or both. (An example in the same vein is what I call the dialogue of doubt. This is when a character says, “I don’t know what to say,” or “this is just boring,” or “where is this going?” —not because it’s germane but because the insecurities of the author are leaking through to the page.)

A few more general guidelines: Remember that the main purpose of the name is the same as it is in real life—identifying someone quickly and efficiently. But on the page we don’t have the benefit of visual and aural cues, so it’s even more important to pick names that are distinct from one another. Try to vary the first letter and length of the names you choose (my brain seems to only register the first letter and the number of letters in a name—Colin and Carey pose a problem); using names from different languages can also help keep them distinct, since readers are less likely to confuse Flossie and Chai Yenn than Flossie and Francis. And ponder long and hard before you pick wild or wildly symbolic names (like Oedipa Maas from Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49). Yes such names are memorable, but they can be distracting, and they impart a sort of unreal, fairytale-comic-book tone. If this is what you want, great. Just be sure it’s what you want.

Dear Fuck,

I haven’t heard from you in a long time, but I recognize your voice. As I recall, you were quite charming and sincere in your pledge to leave me alone and I’d like you to honor your word. It seemed to me, back then, that you were the type of person who had surges of feeling, both bitter and amiable, but that the amiable side was the more authentic part of you. So I’d like you to be the decent, rational person I know you can be and leave me alone, please, in all media. I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that turning someone down for a coffee date twenty years ago is an absurd reason to nurse a grudge, and perhaps that’s not the whole story. I know you also find my writing mediocre and pretentious—your opinion has been duly noted. However, we’re not going to be enemies over it. We are also not going to be friends. We are going to be unconcerned with one another in proportion to how well we know each other—which is hardly at all.

Dear Michael Henry, I think you’re a born writer (which is a kind of rare disease of its own, though one I suspect you want to have). You love language and structure and ruminating about the way things are put together, you love writing lists and letters and notes; you think in words and use writing to help organize your thoughts—it’s important to you. But I’m not convinced you’re a born fiction writer. You don’t finish the novels you start, you like nonfiction and craft books better, your reading list sounds medicinal, and you hardly ever write anything, including the three page exercise I gave you. Not to scold, just to state the facts.

It’s all clear to me now, Michael Henry. You are a nonfiction writer, an essay writer, a diarist! You have the energy and motivation to write about yourself and your experiences, your world and your struggles. How do I know this? Because your questions are so long! It’s a boon. What you write should be the thing you can’t stop yourself from writing, the most fun and compelling thing (even if it’s depressing), something that sweeps you up and throws you down whether you chose it or not. It shouldn’t be something you have to force yourself to do (though you may have to force yourself to start), something that doesn’t come naturally or that you don’t turn to when you pick up a book. I mean, if you loved stories and novels, I think we’d know by now. Really.

The trick is to find a way to write about yourself, a form and a forum, and I have a hunch you could be a natural-born blogger. (Remember, blogs can become books.) I love the idea of your blog for several reasons: (1) you can get immediate feedback for your efforts, and you like that. (2) It’s a way for you to connect with the world intellectually, socially, and immediately, which is even more important for you now because illness can be isolating. (3) You have a lot of words in you, lots of thoughts, and blogging requires lots of word-thought-energy. (4) The casual form of the blog rewards energy and intelligence without a ton of the revision and planning which you’re ambivalent about; and most importantly: (5). Now you have something to tie it all together with, a theme or direction: how being diagnosed and treated for a rare, serious illness affects a young person’s life. (I’m assuming you’re young—that’s not the most important part anyway.) Start a blog, Michael Henry! I want to read about how you’re negotiating your terrifying Churg-Strauss Syndrome! (And I am so sorry to hear you’re sick, though I’m glad you got a diagnosis quickly—that can be difficult with something so rare. What a fascinating topic to cover in your blog—how did they figure out what you have? It’s really interesting, and I bet you have a lot to say about it.)

Now, on to your questions. I was impressed by your revision—I can see how much and how deeply you’ve been contemplating the process of writing. Craft books have served you well. If you love them, read them. Reading is a love relationship, and though it’s nice to branch out, you’ll kill the pleasure if you start making yourself read things. Books are intimate, they’re mind-to-mind, and there’s no reason to spend a lot of time with a mind you’re not simpatico with and no reason to avoid books you like. Yes, I do think one needs to read in their chosen genre too, absolutely. But if you like craft books, read craft books. Don’t let anyone take that away from you—including yourself.

I think you’re right about revision too. It can be disruptive, in the middle of composing something, to send your mind foraging for what other people have told you might be missing. It’s better to just do it and know you can always revise. I tend to overthink it. For me, there’s no way to avoid the interruption. Here’s a link to a short essay I wrote for Willow Springs that goes into these issues. But my overthinking problem is mostly on the level of the sentence. It really is impossible to consciously analyze a story while you’re writing it, not if you want it to remain alive in any way. A lot of writing, for me at least, is just seeing what comes out of me. I may have a plan, but I usually don’t stick to it—but even a little bit of plan helps. Usually when I start a story—now—I’ve thought of at least two characters who do not want the same thing. Without that, it would be an aimless mess. Like my novel!

As for workshops, I share some of your misgivings. There’s plenty to learn in a writing workshop, but most of what you learn isn’t what you spend time talking about in class. It’s important to get those kinds of intellectual and analytical tools—for revision, and to show you your choices—but most students in workshops just need people to read their work. They need a reason to write something, a deadline, and readers who pay attention. The critique session is mostly just a way of everyone saying, “I read it, I read it, I read it.” It can seem a little pointless, and if I ruled the world I’d do it differently, but those desultory hours do help you develop your judgment. Or your taste. And students seem to crave a place where they can experiment, test ideas, and rank themselves against other writers to see if they’re any good. It’s hard to know at first if your writing sucks or not. Workshops can help—though you might just end up thinking that yes, you suck, but at least you don’t suck as much as everyone else.