I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words. I use everything. Turning life into stories is how I make sense of my experience.

I'm at a stage in my career where I don't expect or get too much editorial input into what I'm doing. I have a proven track record of success, so my editors are willing to cut me some slack even when a particular approach is not to their personal taste.

It’s mostly just you have to convince yourself that there’s nothing else in the room but John Lennon and suddenly things start John Lennon-ing!

Oh, yes! Fill the churches with dirty thoughts! Introduce honesty to the White House! Write letters in dead languages to people you've never met! Paint filthy words on the foreheads of children! Burn your credit cards and wear high heels! Asylum doors stand open! Fill the suburbs with murder and rape! Divine madness! Let there be ecstasy, ecstasy in the streets! Laugh and the world laughs with you!

I write constantly, so it flows from one project to the next, and I would edit everything endlessly if I had the chance. I can always see ways to improve what I've done. At the same time, knowing it's all an ongoing life's work allows me to be less precious about blind alleys, failed experiments, and misfires.

This is the end of our sentence

I do like to keep abreast of what the hardcore vocal members of the comics-reading audience are talking about on Internet message boards, but there are so few of them, as a percentage of the buying audience, that I can't allow their opinions to dictate story direction.