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When the stories come easily and the writing process doesn't feel laboring, that's usually a good sign for me.

I feel like I have so many stories basting in my mind, and they come busting out when they're ready.

When I do my best work, the stories tend to be pretty emotionally-charged.

Writers sometimes write things for me and I like to see what they write because I want to see what their take on my delivery is or what they think that I can do with something. So I kind of leave that to them.

As long as your storytelling and emotional depth are intact, that's what people will focus on.

I do have to earn a living, so I'm conscious of probable reactions from readers, but the most important one is still the awareness that if I'm not enjoying a story, the reader won't either.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

When I'm feeling frustrated with a story, I have faith that it's going to come. Also, when I first started writing, I wanted to write the stories that were not in my childhood, to represent people who hadn't historically been represented in literature.

What's gratifying for me and interesting is that people are picking up on exactly what I want them to, which is that this is energizing people, and making them want to make stories.