I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.
I want to Live! Not Die, Not Hide, LIVE!
I am not just what I remember. I am also what I dream.
I wish, peevishly, that he didn’t know anything about how soldiers sleep, how they protect their fellow soldiers. It would be nicer if I could share the cloaks warmth with him, if we could lie with our faces together, whispering into the night.
I think I learned a lot from reading in general – even from reading badly written books.
I loved to read when I was a kid, and as soon as I realized that an actual person got to make up the books I loved so much, I decided that that was the job for me.
Generally I finish a first draft in 2-6 months, then I set it aside for a while so that when I come back to it I can read it with fresh eyes and figure out how to improve it.
I like the fact that kids are willing to be imaginative and go along with me when I’m telling strange tales.
I was lucky enough not to face any required summer reading lists until I went to college. So I still think of summer as the best time to read for fun.
Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.
There’s something about each of my books that I’m really proud of, and there’s something about each of my books that I cringe over.
I write a book over a period of months or years, and when I’m done with it, usually another year goes by before I see it in print. It’s hard to be patient and wait.
I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I’ve picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I’m trying to describe.
Fail big if you have to, but go down trying.
Amazing, Yetta thought. Back home I couldn’t have chosen my own husband. And here I’m thinking about choosing presidents, governors, mayors, laws...
When writing isn’t going well-then the bad thing about being a writer is that I also have the freedom and flexibility to do something badly, and no one else can fix it for me.
It’s just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story. I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.
There is nothing more valuable than the printed word.
A ssure you, the more I travel through time, the more I witness, the more I realize that there are things that are both strange and wonderful, far beyond human comprehension.
After Ive sent my revised draft to my agent and editor, they suggest more improvement sand again, this revision phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months.