2.
Your real life is in the here and now. Once you figure out what kinds of experiences cause you to feel certain ways, you can change either the experiences, or when that's not possible, change your responses to them.
G. Alan Marlatt
4.
Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.
Alexander Chee