An image often propels the novel, gets it started. For me, it's an image that has a lot of emotion connected to it.

I often read nonfiction, and some of my ideas begin there.

So much of writing is discovery. Sometimes I feel like a rat in a maze, trying to discover the way out. My little heart is beating, and I'm racing down a path thinking, this is the route, it will get me there, as I turn this way and then that.

Old Japanese saying, live scorpion in pants makes life interesting.

Once you're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversations and actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over.

Some of the best things that have happened in my stories have happened seemingly of their own accord. The writer becomes a listener, just writing things down as they come.

Dreams aren't practical, but we can't live without them.