I'm not in charge of my life.

This is motherhood for you,' said my own mother. 'Going through life with your heart outside your body.

I'm so glad that social media gives me a chance to do that, to celebrate books I love and help proselytize for books I love.

They say - "they" being the great philosophers, or possibly the cast of Seinfeld - that breaking up is like pushing over a Coke machine. You can't just do it, you have to set the thing in motion, rock it back and forth a few times.

When I was five I learned to read. Books were a miracle to me - white pages, black ink, and new worlds and different friends in each one. To this day, I relish the feeling of cracking a binding for the first time, the anticipation of where I'll go and whom I'll meet inside.

Back in the day, when I was starting out, I'd get five or 10 emails and I'd respond to every one. But after my third or fourth book it got too time-consuming.

I was lucky to receive help at the beginning of my career and now I want to help other writers as much as I can.