You don't market-research a novel; you really are writing it for yourself. It's a hobby, in many ways. The problem becomes what you do when you're confronted by criticism. You just don't listen to it.

I've been accused of being very vain about my apathy.

When the going gets tough, the tough go drinking.

Fear never shows up and the party ends early.

What keeps me interested--and it always does--is how can she be a bad actress on film but a good one in reality?

A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire. I've just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people's real emotions. Search for this night's prey. Who will it be?

I needed something--the distraction of another life--to alleviate fear.