The way this whole novel thing came together was, I sold them one bill of goods and then didn't communicate very well. I am like Captain Run-on Sentence.

I definitely have managed to overcome dyslexia now to become a fully functional human being but things were a lot more difficult when I was younger.

I picked books by their covers - the worse the cover, the more I wanted to read it.

At 12 I dropped out of school but I had lost interest in it at a much earlier age. For me, school was very very stressful.

When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination.

I had this whole ritual with my mother making the bed with me inside it so I would be invisible.

I think what my father appreciated was the science experiment of life. He had these kids, and they had their own experiences. He wanted us to discover the world for ourselves.