I know if I did that [career as painter] all the time I would get tired of it.

I had a general outline of subjects. The way I start my days is my husband brings me a thermos of coffee up to the bedroom.

I do love that discovery of when you're trying to figure out how to make something work, and it happens in a way that you didn't predict.

I started thinking about [ what book is going to go next] when I was working on As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth.

I don't like things to be static when I'm working.

I creep over to my chair and sit there with my notebook and my thermos of coffee. It's my best time for thinking, because I haven't started thinking about anything else yet, and the thoughts can kind of go in and out of my head.

One of my favorite moments in that book [As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth] was when something happened that I had no idea was going to happen.