I think that most successful artists - not always, but a lot of them, in any field - have business savvy as well and have some sense of marketing acumen. I think the key is to be good enough at it that it doesn't overwhelm your aesthetic interests, but have just enough that you make smart decisions.

For each of my novels, I've had something of a eureka moment of deciding what world I want to set it in - Wall Street, the pop-music industry, Harvard - and what the very vague contours of the narrative might be (which typically get changed a lot through the writing process).

I write the books I want to read. I'm interested in seeing what happens with this book in the marketplace.

People talk about Obama in the same way 12-year-olds talk about Bieber, and speculate about what he and Michelle are like behind closed doors the same way those 12-year-olds wonder what Justin and Selena are like.

I think that most successful artists - not always, but a lot of them, in any field - have business savvy as well and have some sense of marketing acumen. I think the key is to be good enough at it that it doesn't overwhelm your aesthetic interests, but have just enough that you make smart decisions.

I've never gone through the paces that writing textbooks sometimes recommend, such as writing out a character's biography, or determining what his favorite food is, or most traumatic memory, etc. - that's always seemed like a fraudulent way of assembling a fictional person.

It's through the voice that I tend to figure out the character (and through dialogue that I come to understand other characters).