“I will admit, I've never had a student offer himself up for a vicious beating in order to prove he's worth my time.” “This was nothing... Once I jumped off a roof.”

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.

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 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?

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.

Just because I tread heavily on propriety's toes doesn't mean I can't play the game when it's of use to me.

If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn't have needed to write a whole novel about it.