Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism.

If you give a writer a pile of blank paper and say you can write anything you like on any subject you want at any length you want, you will probably never get anything at all, whereas if you have 900 words to write, and it's fiction that is somehow op-ed fiction, and it needs to tie in with Halloween . . . okay, those are my constraints, that's where I now need to start building something.

It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will take a graveyard.

People pursue things. As soon as they have them they run away from them.

I'm sure there's an alternate universe where I got to become a pulpy science fiction writer.

Sometimes I wish that just solving the plot problems was enough. And then elves would go and do all the actual work moving the words around.

It's not a bad thing for a writer not to feel at home. Writers - we're much more comfortable at parties standing in the corner watching everybody else having a good time than we are mingling.