Sometimes it is safer to read maps with your feet.

A monster. You and your friends, all of you. Pretty monsters. It's a stage all girls go through. If you're lucky you get through it without doing any permanent damage to yourself or anyone else.

I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake...

In terms of style, too, I think I've been working with a somewhat limited -- although intentionally limited -- set of tools. So I'm attempting to be a bit looser as I start stories off. To digress. To make interesting mistakes.

I didn't do anything as active as deciding that I wanted to be a writer. For one thing, I didn't feel like I was the final authority on whether or not I was anything like a writer. (I'm a timid soul.) I just kept writing stories, because becoming a veterinarian seemed as if it involved too much dissection.

I think that we want to be led slightly astray when we're being told a story. Just a little wrong footed.

The zombies were like Canadians, in that they looked enough like real people at first, to fool you.