Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

I started puberty very late. I was nearly sixteen. And for complicated reasons this late arrival of my puberty caused me to stop playing competitive tennis. But before my puberty problem, I had trouble with my lower back and with my left testicle.

After my first novel, my mother said to me, 'Why don't you make your writing more funny? You're so funny in person.' Because my first novel was rather dark. And I don't know, but something about what she said was true. 'Yes, why don't I?' Maybe I was afraid to be funny in the writing. But since then, seven books later, almost everything I've done has a comedic edge to it.

I need to stay in the present and use that new-age mantra: 'I'm okay right now.' But I worry about all the things I'm failing at every moment.

There are so many talented young writers named Jonathan, with whom by comparison I suffer terribly.

Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

I always liked those characters in 'True Blood' who could turn into animals. I'd love to be an animal of some kind and run quickly through a forest.