I'm very organized - and the best thing - when you love your work, you don't mind putting in 15 hour days. It's joyful.

I began as a dramatist in the theater, so I'm always thinking about how a story moves, what it looks like, how to engage the senses, how dialogue sounds, what feels authentic and sounds real, what's funny, how to build distinctive and original characters - all the aspects of playwriting, scene-building, the architecture of dramatizing.

Everything has to be clean and orderly when I sit down to write. I have candles going, and small objects that remind me of what I am working on, or bring me into the world of the character.

I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it. Don't be afraid to shake it up.

If a man walks in beauty, he will create, and when he creates, he prospers.

And so, when I was a young writer I always worked hard on imagery, and I knew that the roots of imagery were the senses - and that if my readers could feel, taste and see what I was talking about, I would be able to tell them a story.

I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.