Writing a Novel is Like…

The trope that writing a novel is like giving birth has always irritated me. It’s not like giving birth at all, because when you give birth they give you nice drugs and to write you have to be pretty much sober. And birth, at least in my own experience, doesn’t take years (it only feels that way). But something strange does happen when you are writing a novel. You make up people, you put them in a time and place and you throw a bunch of stuff at them. Sometimes they go off on their own and yo...