When I was hired by the University of Washington extension school to teach the one-year fiction writing course - 96 classroom hours - I quickly determined that I knew only about an hour's worth off the top of my head.

None of great sages of China preached the precept of love as a guideline for human behavior.

My experience is that an original and compelling idea for a novel is a rare thing.

On opening sentences: "If in the first chapter a hurricane is going to blow down an oak tree which falls through the kitchen roof, there's no need to first describe the kitchen."

I researched fiction writing for months before I taught my first class, much of it looking for strong techniques from bestselling authors.

I can only write one novel at a time. The author of the Perry Mason novels, Erle Stanley Gardner, often worked on four novels simultaneously, and produced a million words a year. I'm envious.

I need time to develop the idea into a plot before I talk about it.