I might add that you change as a person as you grow older, so you change as a writer, too.

If anything in your life is more important than writing - anything at all - you should walk away now while you still can. Forewarned is forearmed. For those who cannot or will not walk away, you need only to remember this. Writing is life. Breathe deeply of it.

The Golden Compass is one of the best fantasy / adventure stories that I have read. This is a book no one should miss.

Herein lies the heart and soul of the nations. Their right to be free men, Their desire to live in peace, Their courage to seek out truth, Herein lies the Sword of Shannara.

There is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book.

On the other hand, I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind - to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.

In bad weather, I spent hours drawing action figures on paper, coloring them, backing them on cardboard, then cutting them out and creating whole stories around their lives.