I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all.

There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes.

Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.

People move around so much in the world, things get lost.

With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

I think about Old Nick carrying me into the truck, I'm dizzy like I'm going to fall down. "Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing." "Huh?" "Scaredybrave." "Scave." Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn't being funny.