I made a drawing for a book I'm working . It's a little drawing of a girl who's ashamed and upset and hides in the corner of the closet. It's the kind of drawing that I feel like I'm really good at.

I don't think about it that much, but sometimes I am surprised by that. I sometimes wonder why I didn't turn out to be the kind of picture-book writer who has stuffed animals that go with their books. That would be okay with me.

Often they do go back and forth the whole way, and I don't know until the very end what the last line of the book is going to be. That was true here - the very last line of the book was the last thing that happened.

In some ways I'm very structured.

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.

By the time I finished the book [All Alone in the Universe], Robin Roy was saying, "More pictures!"

I don't want to make myself sound that spontaneous, because I'm not.