If you aren't having fun, if you aren't anxious to find out what happens next as you write, then not only will you run out of steam on the story, but you won't be able to entertain anyone else, either.

You've been nipping at cook's wine!!

She glared at him. "Why are you forever asking hard questions?" He smiled. "Sooner or later you'll have to be able to answer one." Daja shoved him, grinning.

Publishers have realized that, unlike the previous time period, American teenagers are both smarter and require more topical material than they had been giving them before that. For one thing, they'll read thicker books. Besides, has anybody looked at the news or read the newspapers recently?

What happens to each of my female heroes, certainly, is they find something bigger than themselves that they are honored to serve. It's not giving up your family.

Your life might be easier if you were. A fool for love is happier than a Dog with a heart that's all leather.

Her free hand was clenched in a fist. I held still, waiting for her to say something, to tell me she should have never left me here, where her friends might look to me for help. Finally she looked at me. Her eyes were hard, but she'd let no tears fall. "This is where we blame those who are responsible, Cooper, she told me, her voice very soft. "The colemongers, and the bought Dogs at Tradesmen's kennel. We'll leave an offering for him with the Black God when all this is done, and we'll occupy ourselves with tearing these colemongers apart. all right? We put grief aside for now.