Of course there are big differences in length and character and vocabulary, but each level has its particular pleasures when it comes to the words one can use and the way one uses them.

Canadians are Americans with no Disneyland.

It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books.

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.

I think I am too interested in my own ideas to copy anyone else's, but I find that other people's imagery, the flow of language in the outside world, games with words, and ideas about relationships are all most important to me.

I am really chained to my computer these days so I work in my bedroom, which is a room I have worked in for years and years. It is just as much an office as a bedroom, and during the day, my bed is rather like an extension of my desk.

Reading is very creative - it's not just a passive thing. I write a story; it goes out into the world; somebody reads it and, by reading it, completes it.