She was a wicked thing sometimes. All full of want. As if the shape of the world depended on her mood. As if she were important.

It's easier to write about heartbreak after you've had your heart broken. You have more material to draw from, you can extrapolate from your own experiences and make reasonable assumptions about how your characters would feel and act.

Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine.

Death was like an unpleasant neighbor. You didn’t talk about him for fear he might hear you and decide to pay a visit.

She looked at me. "What? Is there something wrong with my idea?" "It's not very heroic," I said dismissively. "I was expecting something with a little more flair." "Well, I left my armor and warhorse at home," she said. "You're just upset because your big University brain couldn't think of a way, and my plan is brilliant.

Denna is a wild thing," I explained. "Like a hind or a summer storm. If a storm blows down your house, or breaks a tree, you don't say the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something unfortunately was hurt. The same is true of Denna.

It's like the query letter problem that I just mentioned, magnified a hundredfold. You might be good at telling a story, but that doesn't mean you know anything about marketing. Or layout. Or editing. Or publicity. Or selling your books for foreign markets.Everyone can point to a few examples of people that have done very well for themselves self-publishing. But honestly, those folks are lucky as lottery winners.