If you're going to have a book full of clever people and nobody ever jokes, it's just not going to ring true to the reader. That said, humor writing is the hardest kind of writing there is.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.

Writing a good query letter has very little to do with writing a good novel. But if you can't write the one, it makes it really hard to get the other published.

Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?

Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The second was some rather bad poetry, but it was short, and I forced my way through by gritting my teeth and occasionally closing one eye so as not to damage the entirety of my brain.