Am I the only one who secretly hopes that the Curiosity rover will be swallowed up by a giant alien worm living just below Mars's surface?

Sometimes I think that my best writing comes from exposing my fears and vulnerabilities and hoping that nobody notices it's about me.

That's also part of having great editors -- they can sort of be honest with you and say, "I see where you're headed with this, but I don't think it's there yet. Dig deeper, babe, and come back with something more." And that's what you do, you dig waaaaaaaay down and you walk around the block eight million times and then you have it -- shazam! And it all comes together in something soooo much better than you thought you were capable of.

Life is full of chances -- and those times when we each trust our own guts and have a terrific outcome reaffirms our ability to make good decisions.

Dear Aspiring Author; Write with heart. Put that open, honest, bare soul on paper.

My motto is: When in doubt, just keep lying. Even if you're terrible at it.

I believe the first story I ever wrote was about a young girl who was terribly mistreated by her very cruel parents, and one day the girl fled to the woods to live amongst a pack of wolves. Hey, I was eleven, loved wolves, and had been grounded for what I felt was a minor infraction. Can you blame me?