If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don't like writing them, or if they bore you, skip 'em.

Kisses were better than potions.

He is flawless, without a blemish. Majesic . . . muscular.

I think kids abandon stories all the time. They start stories and get frustrated or get a different, better idea. I think that it is more worthwhile to stick with a story and revise it and try to finish it than abandon ship. Revisions, for any writer, are the name of the game.

I'm more interested in plot than theme, but I hope my values find their way into my stories: kindness, sympathy, effort, and humor!

No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.

I didn't write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which were rejected by every children's book publisher in America. The first book of mine to be accepted for publication was ELLA ENCHANTED, and not one but two publishers wanted it. That day, April 17, 1996, was one of the happiest in my life.