Don't let the worst people you know dictate your behavior.

I love mixing humor and terror, or humor and exhaustion, or even humor and despair. I'm dealing right now with a loved one with cancer, and she's of course sad, but also telling the most disturbingly morbid jokes and puns. I love that, there's so much humanity in being able to mock fate and hardship.

Being a bad writer a thousand times first.

I get very invested in characters, it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work.

I have read many, many of these first-time published efforts and often, even though some are absolutely at pro levels of production, and have very costly printing and presentation, they lack a purpose, they merely emulate successful comics that already exist... I can't stress this enough. Have something to say.

I admire writers who can remain objective and distanced, but that doesn't seem to be in my toolbox, somehow.

Don't let the worst people you know dictate your behavior.