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.

I want you, as a reader, to experience what I experience, to let that other world, that imaginary world that I have created, tell you things about the real world.

This is for writers yet to be published who think the uphill climb will never end. Keep believing. This is also for published writers grown jaded by the process. Remember how lucky you are.

...[Y]ou have an inner strength that makes it possible for you to do things other people couldn't even begin to think of doing.

I want to kick-start your imagination and let you discover the places it can take you.

Fiction writers are strange beasts. They are, like all writers, observers first and foremost. Everything that happens to and around them is potential material for a story, and they look at it that way.

She has her gown nicely in place tonight, doesn't she? Black velvet and sparkles, not a thread left hanging. Clever girl, this city. Even the sky is her friend.