My first job is to write a book that I believe is compelling and deserves the long sustained attention that any novel requires, and to worry about the commerce only late in the game.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like working in children's books because it gives rise to such a variety of jobs. One month it may be a picture book, the next a retelling, the next a play, a short story or the start of the next novel.
My goal as a novelist is to create smart entertainment, books that keep bright people up too late, that make them want to read just one more chapter. Books that have ideas threaded in amidst the thrilling bits, ideas that I hope linger even after people close the book.
I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels.
While I'm writing, I'm also the first reader, and I want to write a book where I'm excited about what happens next.
Writing a book is such a full-time job. If you're away for a few days, you have to start again.
I try to write about things, places, events, and phenomena I know about personally. That helps make the novels more genuine.
Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.
If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.
I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.
I believe that it is my job not only to write books but to have them published. A book is like a child. You have to defend the life of a child.
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