You seem to write easily, naturally, like a good ol' gal Southern storyteller. And humor is a large part of your appeal. I suffer from what most humorists do, a deep need to be taken seriously. But writing humor is very serious and hard. Still, I find a novel without humor is not interesting to me.
Life is, after all, very funny.
If I did not really believe that I would jump off a building tomorrow. It seems to me that a book group or a writers conference figured in your decision to write novels. In 1976 I went to The Santa Barbara Writers Conference and won first prize for a short story about childhood that eventually became my first novel. One of my idols, Eudora Welty, was a judge and encouraged me. Your affinity for most of your characters is striking.