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.

You spend so much time wondering who you are, don't you think? You flounder about, searching for your identity, when most of the time it is plain as the nose on your face. You struggle with questions of purpose and need, and forget that the answers are found mostly inside yourselves.

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.

Why pretend to be something you're not? If you have to be someone, be someone no one else is.

I haven't made up my mind about doing anymore Landover books.

I think I make better use of language and imagery than when I started out.

A cat never discusses his business with humans, not even Princesses. A cat never explains and never apologizes. A cat never alibis. You must accept a cat as it is and for what it is and not expect more than the pleasure of its company.