I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both.

Determination and hard work are as important as talent.

What's the point of thinking about how it's going to end when it's just the beginning?

I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!

The creative process; I enjoy thinking up the stories and situations for my books.

It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.

In a New York Post interview, Judy Blume, author of young-adult fiction, gave this advice on getting your kids to read: "Moms come up to me at book signings and describe how they're telling their daughters, 'These were my favorite books,'?" she says. "I say, 'Quit it! That's the biggest turnoff!'"You want to get them to read them, leave them around the house and every so often, say, 'You're not ready to read this yet.'