The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

There's no right way to be female or female-identifying. You can love clothes or you cannot love clothes. You can be a stay-at-home mom or you can have a career. You can do both. You can choose to have kids you can choose to not have kids.

Life is short, and I'd rather be sitting in the poor house doing what I love doing than making a lot of money and being miserable. Life is very short.

Even now, so many years after the end of the show, there are still new fans finding their way into Sunnydale. Buffy doesn't care that they're late to the game. She's been waiting for them - and she accepts all of them exactly as they are. Besides, no matter how many times you may have seen an episode, there's no such thing as an expert. I can guarantee there are always new and intriguing things to discover in Buffy; things that you missed somehow on previous viewings.

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.

I'm not a big hijinker. I'm a big sit-in-my-chair-and-read-a-book-er.

I'm such a geek, I know all about mythology and I don't know Marc Jacobs.