If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.

I see so many talented writers who have difficulties with that. And if you don't believe it's important, you won't put in the work you need to.

Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge.

I'm writinng my first full-length novel, which is based on a novella I wrote called "The Mad Scientist's Daughter." I'm having a wonderful time with it, but of course it's presenting challenges as well. Stories always do, no matter what they are.

If readers like The Thorn and the Blossom, which I would call literary fantasy, I think they would like books such as Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love, Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen.

Sometimes you have to follow your uncommon sense.

I'm used to writing fairy tales that can be somewhat dark, and the truth is that in fairy tales, romances are always problematic. They may end happily ever after, but someone's getting pushed into an oven or has blood in her shoe.