Going off the grid is always good for me. It's the way that I've started books and finished books and gotten myself out of deadline dooms and things.

And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it.

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...") and it's magic and wonderful and strange.

Is there any person in the world who does not dream? Who does not contain within them worlds unimagined?

Parameters are the things you bounce off to create art.

Well meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading - do not discourage children from reading because you feel they're reading the wrong thing. There is no such thing as the wrong thing to be reading and no bad fiction for kids.

I wish being a beekeeper, which I am, gave you a free pass on the carbon footprint, but it doesn't.