When it is going well, it is the best job [writing] in the world. For those few hours, you are god, in control of everything. However, for me, the great joy of writing is that it has allowed me to travel the world in search of stories.

I love babies. I think they are beautiful in all sorts of different ways. I try to pick up and hold a baby every day, if possible, because it nourishes me. It feeds my soul. Babies are drawn to me. And I think it's because they see me as one of them. But ... cooler and with my life put together a little bit more. If a baby were president, there would be no taxes. There would be no war. There would be no ... government, and ... things could get terrible. And actually probably it would be a better screenplay idea than a serious suggestion.

Perenelle shuddered. "You know I hate leprechauns more than almost anything.

They [my characters]speak to me all the time! In fact some of them never shut up!

I've published over 100 books - and that is divided about 50/50 adult and young adult. Lately, I have been writing more YA, which is such a great genre to write it. I don't have a favourite (I usually say it's the last book I've written), but certain books do stick in the mind. My very first YA novel, The Children of Lir, will always be special to me, and, of course The Alchemyst because it was a series I'd wanted to write for ages.

Even that. What is the point in living forever, if it is not with the woman I love?

Middle school's amazing. It is extraordinary. An extraordinary time.