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I write a lot about disadvantaged people, particularly vulnerable children, because I feel that that's who I was. That is familiar terrain for me. And I try to write about things that are very close to me because I want people to feel the passion that I have for the subject.

I write a lot about myself.

I am, as are most writers, just hugely obsessive, and so are many of my closest friends, who tend to be writers or scientists. It's a trait of human nature that I'm particularly in touch with. So I tend to project it onto my characters.

Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.

I write human stories. I write about people. Not as a product of their environment. But from the stance that everybody is made of the same thing.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

I write about outsiders. I write about people who are outside and don't know quite how to get in because it's how I've always felt.

I write almost everything, actually. Songs, poems, stories. And stories out of every genre, too.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

I do write about obsession, but I don't think I have an obsession for writing. I'm not a compulsive writer. I like to watch obsession in other people, watch the way it makes them behave.