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I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

I don't very often read novels.

Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.

While writing a novel, I don't read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed.

I think there's something about studying a book which will kill it if you're not careful.

There's more fiction in my life than in books, so I don't bother with them.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't read a novel all the way through until after high school. Blasphemy, I know. I'm an author now. Books and words are my world.

I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears open, you can't possibly live long enough to write all the novels you'll encounter.'

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.