The first two books that I did by myself were long stories in verse. I knew I could do that because I'd written a lot in verse. But, verse stories are hard to sell, so my editor encouraged me to try writing in prose.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
I have been writing songs and poems since I was a little girl. I started writing short scripts, which evolved into the idea for a book.
The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.
What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.
There are people who think it's easier to write books in verse, and it's definitely not.
I wrote my own verses. Anything I did, I wrote myself.
I started writing poetry in high school because I wanted desperately to write, but somehow, writing stories didn't appeal to me, and I loved the flow and the feel and sense of poetry, especially that of what one might call formal verse.
I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels, I spend a lot of time on the story's larger rhythms, such as sentence and paragraph length, placement of flashbacks and dialogue.
I've never really thought of writing books. I've never thought about stories as a part of a collection.
My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose.