Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.

But there was more, as there always is when the love goes. She was haunted, naturally. Otherwise what is the point, why leave your rickety house, and why this yo-yo world giving us things and yanking them back?

And then of course the music sprang up, lousy rock as bold and dull as a giant potato. "Love this song," Todd said, like it was unusually brave to like what was number one on the radio.

People worry more about girls, for a good reason: I don't think my parents thought I was going to be raped by a classmate or attacked when I was walking alone in some neighborhood. So it's not just paranoid parents.

Mostly, it's flattering to meet fans. As long as it's in a planned, professional meeting, rather than, say, someone dropping by my home, which is not as pleasant.

I first told the idea to an editor I had met who, after reading one of my novels for adults that was set in a high school, had an idea that I might write something for children.

It is always terrible to be told to go play with people one doesn't know.