When my wife was in the hospital having our first child, a nurse told me of a teen mother who either received lots of medication during labor or was already self-medicated when they brought the baby to her for the first time. She allegedly looked at the baby's ID bracelet and assumed that her daughter's name was Fe-mal-e.

It was told to me as true, though I can't vouch for the veracity of it.


Life isn't a support system for writing. It's the other way around.

- Stephen King, from On Writing