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.

What writers do - everything comes from inside, from experiences of the world that we have digested. And then we turn it into silk, or stories.

Nature inspires me continually. Today, I can look out my window and see the entire world covered with snow. It's like Narnia under the White Witch.

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!

I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.

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.

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