INTERVIEWER

What do you need in order to write?

NUNEZ

Just the time and the quiet. I write on my laptop at my desk, or really anywhere in the apartment but the bed. I get up at six or seven, and I work until I’m tired—on a good day that’s for four or five hours, and they go by surprisingly fast. I used to have the bad habit of saying, Oh, I couldn’t write this morning because of this or that, so I guess I won’t be writing today. Now I know that even if I can get in just one hour at whatever time of day it’s a good thing, because those hours add up. What’s important is to try to write at least a little each day, because then you’re living with the work, and even when you step away from it, it’s still part of what’s going on in your head.

INTERVIEWER

Does living alone help?

NUNEZ

Definitely. This is a hard thing to say, but it’s absolutely true—when I think of the men I’ve been with, every one of them stood between me and my writing. Even when they were supportive, it didn’t matter—too much of my energy went into the relationship, the problems, the difficulties of trying to make things work. And not all of them were supportive—sometimes there was deliberate sabotage.