Sometimes it is safer to read maps with your feet.

The Customer isn't always right. Sometimes the customer is an a**hole. That's the first rule of retail.

Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl.

A vampire is a flexible metaphor. You know, death, sex, change, stagnation, loss of self, loss of agency, having to keep one's real self secret, the possibility of something lasting forever: love, hate, grief.

Everyone knows that wizards are pigheaded and come to bad ends.

Life is a series of sudden disappearances, leave-takings without the proper goodbyes.

Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.