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For me, writing stories is one way of feeling connected to the universe and God.

Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it.

Today there is a division between those who write about literature and those who create it. I, obviously, don't think that should be there.

The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life.

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than saying them or telling them.

Writing is a way of getting at the things most people would prefer to escape. Writing takes me to the center of life. That's my invitation to my readers as well.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world.

When you are a novelist, you are used to making a narrative do what you want.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.