Try not to become disappointed if someone doesn't like a story you've written. Stick up for your ideas, but listen to what other people say, too. They might have good advice.

There's a lot of things you can put up with, as long as you're not related to them.

In a way, the characters often do take over.

I'm the Beast. You're the Beauty," he said. "It's all a story, isn't it?

Every writer has to find their own way into writing.

I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.

I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another.