I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.

I'm not a vagrant... I'm a hobo. Big difference.

I've discovered writers by reading books left in airplane seats and weird hotels.

To fill a small bag means selecting,and choosing, and evaluating. There's no logicial end to that process. Pretty soon I would have a big bag, and then two or three. A month later I'd be like the rest of you.

Evaluate. Long experience had taught me to evaluate and assess. When the unexpected gets dumped on you, don’t waste time. Don’t figure out how or why it happened. Don’t recriminate. Don’t figure out whose fault it is. Don’t work out how to avoid the same mistake next time. All of that you do later. If you survive.

I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.