That's not such a bad thing,' he said to me. 'In nightmares we can think the worst. That's what they're for, I guess.

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

Twas something else. I had come to hate her, you see. I had come to wish her dead, and that was what held me back.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

When I was a kid I believed everything I was told, everything I read, and every dispatch sent out by my own overheated imagination. This made for more than a few sleepless nights, but it also filled the world I lived in with colors and textures I would not have traded for a lifetime of restful nights.

The redness was going out of the light now, the remains of the day were a fading pink, the color of wild roses.

Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.