She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.

All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new.

Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you'll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don't worry about whether you're "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.

Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn't.

All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.

And he waited. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like a small forever.