There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

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.

I think if you decide that any book is about Only One Thing you're probably wrong. Even if that thing is in there.

And, selfish and scared, I wonder how much more he has to give.

HERE ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, CROWLEY. And suddenly he knew. He hated that. They could just as easily have told him, they didn't suddenly have to drop chilly knowledge straight into his brain.

Sometimes the best way to learn something is by doing it wrong and looking at what you did.

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there'll always be better writers than you and there'll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.