The morning time is also a time when I look at what I did yesterday. That's often a jumping-off point for today.

I'm heavily influenced by Edward Ardizzone, how he has people talking in little speech bubbles. I love those. And also Edward Gorey. Those are two of my favorite people.

I had read [Charles] Dickens's novels were often published serially. I thought it would be fun to write a book, just sitting down and writing a chapter every day, not knowing what would happen next. So that's how I wrote the first draft. And then of course I had to go back and make sure everything worked and change things.

I love that when you're writing your mind is sort of figuring things out on its own, without you directing it.

Some of it just involved thinking about, for example, the different kinds of science, what chemistry is.

In the bedroom time I have generated thoughts, and then in the studio I take those thoughts and try to shape them into something.

I remember when I was working on All Alone in the Universe, and Robin Roy was my editor. When I first sent it to her, she said kids this age don't want pictures in their books.