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.

It happened the way I come up with any story, which is that I took elements of my own life and put them into the story, but in a very mixed-up way.

Writers: believe! And go do the work . . .

I put that part of myself into both Brendan and Evelyn [from The Thorn and the Blossom] - as well as some of my own anxieties about the academic life!

Writing is an art like other arts. Dancers don't dance every once in a while. Musicians don't stop practicing. They are dedicated to what they do.

In the Forest of Forgetting do you remember any romances? All the relationships in those stories are dark and twisted - people fall in love, but they really shouldn't have. There's even a story about a marriage, but it focuses on a woman who marries a bear!

The appeal of writing a romance was that I'd never written one before the The Thorn and The Blossom.