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My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.

I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.

I wrote a few children's books... not on purpose.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I'd written, I don't want to leave that behind.

I do not really write for children: I write only for me and for the few people I hope to please, and I write for the story.

There are all these things I want to do when I don't have to finish a book. But I have to keep writing because I keep having children.

You don't need to have kids to write a good book for kids. I don't want my kids to see themselves in my books. Their lives should be their lives.

One of the things that made me try writing novels was I could take time off to be with the kids. That's the practical side of what I love about the writing life.

As an only child lacking siblings and playmates, I was alone a great deal of the time. Much of this was spent reading virtually anything I could get my hands on.