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When I'm not working, my time is really about my children.

At this stage I am not involved with young adults as closely as many other writers. My children are grown up and my grandchildren are still quite young.

My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.

Child actors come off as work being their life and doing it 24/7, but I still have those days where it's totally, like, whatever: shopping, movies, adventures.

I have two little children. I didn't want to be missing their childhood while I was away, busy writing about children.

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time.

I've learned to accept that I'm a children's writer, even if it's not what I set out to become. It's what I should have been all along, and I'll stay in this role as long as I'm a writer.

I must confess that although I am quite passionate about the books I create for children, I am not the best oral storyteller. In fact, I stink at it.

It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time!