Every book has got its challenges. You run into a plot point that you can't figure out, or a scene that you struggle to write and have to write 50 times.

So, whenever I'm writing, I'm writing in the presence of all the other books I've read and I think we all are.

He breathed once more, holding the air in his chest, as if it were not air but something more--a sweet taste of freedom, of all cares lifted, everything over and done.

I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.

My inventing time is all done under the influence of aerobic exercise. Basically, I do all my thinking while I run.

I think many years ago I got on a bus in L.A. and drove around to see the stars' homes, but that's the extent of my direct experience in Hollywood.

And indeed, I am a warmhearted and thoroughly domestic man who gets up and makes pancakes for his children and kisses them on the head when he sends them off to their day.