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Once I began to hear and pay attention to my fledgling ideas, the biggest hurdle was to learn how to respect them. That was hard, because the real way to respect an idea is to invest the attention and work needed to develop it.

I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.

Most don't live inside their heads as a writer does, having conversations with her own ideas.

I have years of saying ideas that are not listened to. Then, weeks after, of producers finding out that I was right when some other guy comes in and says it. Sometimes I just tell my idea to my editor or to some other guy with maybe gray hair to share it, and then it's brilliant!

Authors can get an attitude of us-against-them when it comes to publishers, but learning how authors and editors can work together taught me to look at my work in a different way and to make that work as solid as possible before it ever goes to the publisher.

I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.

I get the ideas from everything. Children sometimes think you have to have special experiences to write, but good writing brings out what's special in ordinary things.

Once you research an idea, you begin to develop a perspective. Writing about anything in public, often in real time, has helped fashion my views.

I enjoy being influenced by other writers.

The idea that we should write towards the unknown aspects of our experience was totally groundbreaking for me. It gave me the license I needed to try to write outside myself. This attitude has deeply informed my approach to fiction, emboldening me to write characters with voices or situations that are vastly different from my own.