we're very different types of writers, you and I. I find you to be an outstanding storyteller. I find my own so-called specialty to be characterization, at least in that grandiose writerly world in my brain. Who knows if I'm successful.

So ponder the methodology and always feel free to try out other things, but stay true to yourself as a writer, that's the most important thing.

There's a fascinating book about methodology (at least part of it is about methodology) that you might be interested in, Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris. It was published before the two of them split up (and obviously way before Michael Dorris' suicide) but it's a fascinating look at two writers and the ways they cohabited and cowrote. I've been a Louise Erdrich fan for years. Her book Love Medicine is one of my very favorites. She writes with a lot of heart, so I was curious to see how she and Dorris (who by all reports really did a lot of micromanaging of her work) got along and managed to make things work for a time. I should probably read it again.