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

A story is built on characters and reasons.

Being with a small publisher has been huge. They bat for me for everything.

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].

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?

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.