Forget what they tell you. Writing fiction is marrying your children. And vice versa.

And as the troubadour Jackson Browne put it so elegantly, “to love and get away before the walls have arisen, you’ve got to be free.”

But when your idea of a first novel is a five-part epic saga, you’d have to be me.

So I have some, shall we say, special experience in this area.

In the way of most marriages, TABOU and I had been together quite a long time before I really began to see my characters as living breathing beings, living lives on their own terms.

Beginning writers dream of This Magic Moment and wonder when it’s going to happen. Will they be driving through the Bridges of Madison County, when like a thunderbolt their characters descend like Riders on the Storm? And suddenly the novel they’ve been slaving over is Raptured, transported heavenward straight to Simon & Schuster?

That never happened to me. I think it’s because I was a helicopter parent, hovering over my children at the keyboard every night, pregnant with more, then listening to talk radio shows every morning where famous authors described the fiction process like the birthing process.

I thought that’s what every responsible novelist was like. They slaved in the kitchen, they gave birth to thriving characters, and then it was an endless cycle of care and feeding until the first advance check came. Maybe then they hired some help. I wasn’t really sure. Because as I say, I never really saw the thing taking off.

Until one day I got two-by-foured with a marriage proposal.

“Show me the legacy of a lesbian couple,” Mercedes Russet said to me.

I sat there stunned. Mute. We were having dinner. “Come on,” she dared. “Show it to me.”

I remember feeling my pockets for the ring. Where did I put the damn ring? Will she like it? Holy shit, this woman means business!

Characters. You may give birth to them, but get ready cause you’re gonna have to marry them someday. And hold on tight after that, because it’s off to the races from there.

“A girl could be born rich, but nobody was born a hero.” The minute Jocelyn Russet realized that, I was on the phone for flowers and tickets just to keep her interested in me.

“Give half of yours away and see if it doesn’t wake you up in the morning,” Valerie Drummond said to Sylvie Russet, pleased that she could still whip up epigrams in her late sixties. I was pouring Valerie’s gin martini at the time, and I was smitten. Nothing sexier than Valerie’s epigrams. From that moment on, we were very clearly NOT mother and child.

Jocelyn inherited some of that same stuff from her grandmother. “Every beneficiary is a minor for life,” she snapped at Valerie in the kitchen. Caught sneaking a pot au crème, I wondered when I’d last sent Joss tickets and flowers….

Patience Herrick. Now there’s a woman who won’t take your no for an answer. Her advice in philanthropy is, “Annihilate them with acts of kindness only you can afford.” She has a way of pricking up my ears.

As for Herrick the patriarch, “Cold rage is an enforceable warrant” if the author doesn’t pay close attention. That’s one of my more difficult marriages.

“Stop setting me up with men,” Sylvie told me in Palm Beach. What was I thinking?

Henry Kay once asked Valerie Drummond at an art opening, “Is it important to you? That she be free?”

“Not especially,” said Valerie. “She’s free already.”

They shared a smile. I dove for a fresh glass of champagne. This is getting complicated, I remember thinking.

An epigram is a brief, clever and usually memorable statement. When your characters begin to make them, you definitely remember. And you better never forget your anniversary.

So, as for marrying your children, I can recommend it highly as a writer of fiction. Those are a few of my favorite lines from TABOU.

Tell me yours.