I would also argue that there is a good chance that an outline will help you stave off any onslaught of writer's block. Let me advise you right up front that I am not a big believer in writer's block. I think writer's block is God's way of telling you one of two things - that you failed to think your material through sufficiently before you started writing, or that you need a day or two off with your family and friends.

Who would you be but who you are?

If you are always frightened for yourself you can't act, and then life loses its purpose. You just have to tell yourself that, when you get right down to it, you don't matter all that much.

After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.

The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of falling altogether. After all there has to be some belief in magic- however small- for any world to survive.

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list.

We are constantly being put to the test by trying circumstances and difficult people and problems not necessarily of our own making.