My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book. They become so real to me, I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.
The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it.
You’ve got to enjoy whatever you can and forget about the rest.
Do not let anyone discourage you. If they try: get determined, not depressed.
When I started to write, it was the ’70s, and throughout that decade, we didn’t have any problems with book challenges or censorship.
Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.
I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.
Determination and hard work are as important as talent.
I am a big defender of ‘Harry Potter,’ and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.
I love to watch movies.
I meet people on the street or at book signings and they tend to treat me as if they know me, as if we’re connected. It’s great.
I think people who write for kids, we have that ability to go back into our own lives.
I’m an e-mail junkie though I’m trying to read my in-box only twice a day and to answer all at once.
I’m really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!
Ideas seem to come from everywhere – my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.
The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I’m writing.
The creative process; I enjoy thinking up the stories and situations for my books.
What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.
When I’m writing a book, you can’t think about your audience. You’re going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You’re got to write from deep inside.
What’s the point of thinking about how it’s going to end when it’s just the beginning?
No place has delicatessen like New York.