Life is very short, try everything you've dreamed about (within the perimeters of sanity and the law) and regret nothing. Oh, and don't forget the sunscreen.

I'm not going to throw up or over-exercise myself into oblivion to look like a model. People tell me, 'You'd work all the time if you just lost twenty pounds.' What am I going to do, cut off my head?!

Mindi Scott has a real talent for getting inside her protagonist's head. She sketches out Coley's story in grand swathes, and then paints in all the little details, so that you feel as though you are enmeshed in Coley's brain: thinking her thoughts, feeling her confusion, anger, and, in the end, pain. I just don't think it's possible to read this book and not identify with Coley in some way.

Actually, I love mythology. When I was a kid I was obsessed with myth and I wanted to be a mythologist when I grew up. Then I realized I really just like stories.

I wanted to create a heroine that was flawed. I wanted her to be a real person. She's selfish, she's childish, she's immature and because I'm doing a three-book arc I really played that up in the first book. I wanted the reader to be annoyed with her at times.

You were doing a TV show - you don't realise that you're also making social commentary at the same time.

It's all about what you feel on the inside - and I'm feeling like a chocolate chip cookie because I had about ten of them last night!