After two years of sending out query letters and failing to get an agent, I made friends with an author, who was nice enough to introduce me to his agent. That got my foot in the door.

The desire for knowledge shapes a man.

You never do things the easy way, do you?" she said. "There's an easy way?" I asked.

...hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.

The framed tale is, in my opinion, one of the most natural ways to tell a story. If you think of it, the conceit of the frame-less story is actually the odd way of doing things. Without the frame, how do you know the context for a story?

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 my belief that you should never show your work to anyone in the publishing world until it shines like a diamond. Rough drafts don't shine, as a rule. Mine certainly didn't. That's why I was rejected for years and years.