I've always thought flight was fun and wanted to write about flight, and I knew a lot of househusbands who were having a really bad time with it. I thought flight might perk up a marriage here or there.

Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

I could imagine that a character could do almost anything at any time, and that was the freedom of the whole thing. But keeping track of what was plausible for certain characters [was the challenge].

A story is built on characters and reasons.

I used to do jacket design, and I'm very conscious of covers, and probably meddle more than other authors would.

I'm never going to write a whole paragraph describing what a living room looks like.

Until I became a nurse, no one had ever asked me to sign a book contract. I had been writing for decades, read thousands of books, and even worked in publishing for 10 years. Who knew that nursing would be my break?