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At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer.

I wrote my first play when I was eight.

I wrote my first story when I was six or seven.

The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.

I loved everything about being ten, eleven, and twelve years old, and seem to make most of my heroines and heroes that age so I can reexperience all those pitfalls and wonderful discoveries. It helps me to figure out my own life when I write from that eleven year old place!

Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be twelve years old.

When I was one day old, I learned how to read. When I was two days old, I started to write. By the time I was three, I had finished 212 short stories, 38 novels, 730 poems, and one very funny limerick, all before breakfast.

When you are 8 or 9, you should have a childhood. You should have adolescence. You should go through everything in a normal way.

When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.

I think I was 16 when I had the thought of maybe being a writer. And this is complicated, something I only now understand, because when I was young, having dyslexia and not knowing it made reading such an ordeal.