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I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.

I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

I'm constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things - because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.

I usually start with an ending, then outline high points of things that happen, and kind of make up the rest as I go along. Occasionally, the characters surprise me, and I wonder how we got here. Other times, the characters are stubborn and won't do something I want them to in the story.

When I begin to write a story, I usually know how things will end. It's the journey toward that point I must discover. The process is sometimes painful, but also exciting.

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what's going to happen in my life.

Writing is a journey of discovery because until you start, you never know what will happen, and you can be surprised by what you do - expect the unexpected!

What comes to me always is a character, a scene, a moment. That's going to be the beginning. Then, as I write, I begin to perceive an ending. I begin to see a destination, although sometimes that changes. And then, of course, there's the whole middle section looming.

I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.