I think at some level, it's just alchemy that we, as writers, can't explain when we write the characters. I don't set out to create the characters - they're not, to me, collections of quirks that I can put together. I discover the characters, instead. I usually go through a standard set of interview questions with the character in the beginning and ask the vital stuff: What's important to you? What do you love? Hate? Fear? .. and then I know where to start. But the characters just grow on their own, at a certain point. And start surprising me.

There were things out there in the world, things that vampires feared, and now those things were here. She was only seconds out of a very light, fitful sleep, but she knew that the nightmares had followed her effortlessly right into the real world. The draug. They weren’t vampires; they were something else, something that moved through water, formed out of it, dragged vampires down to a slow and awful death.

I just went to work for a vampire, was scared by a spider, and got knocked down by a tanning bomb. And that’s just my day, not my week.

Is it arrogance if one is truly superior?

Me and normal have never really been on speaking terms.

Michael held me when I got inside, because I was shaking all over. That felt so good. Warm all the way down. Did I mention Michael’s feet? They’re all the way sexy, and he’s always barefoot – he hates shoes. I wish he hated pants and shirts, too.

My dad used to say that life's a journey, but somebody screwed up and lost the map.