If there is one thing I will not abide it is the folly of a willful pride.

I want to learn how to pick locks, swordfight, throw pottery - it's all research. It's like the curious person's version of James Bond's license to kill. I've got a license to learn.

Writing from a teen's perspective is easy as pie. At least I've actually been a teen. I've never been a woman, or an ethnic minority, or a weary old man. If anything, writing from the perspective of a child is probably easier for me. When I was a kid everyone thought I was so clever and precocious. Now that I'm adult, everyone thinks that I'm kinda odd and childish.

The good thing about working on the books for 14 years before they hit the shelves is that I worked out most of the kinks long before they were published.

I've read fantasy my whole life. Quite literally; my mom read me The Hobbit before I could read stuff to myself. So I love fantasy; that's what I read for fun, it's what I read professionally to keep abreast of what's in the genre - it's where my heart is.

If I'd been whoring before class and waved a corset at him, no one would have thought twice about it!

And if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that cool props and special effects are not enough. Story comes first. Everything depends on story.