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What I have in advance are people I want to write about and a problem or problems that I see those people encountering and that I want to explore - it all proceeds sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene.

Since I'm not a journalist, I talk about issues that encourage an interchange of ideas through conversation while also being entertaining.

You just have to make sure you're writing about something that's true. It has to be honest and it has to have a real emotion behind it, regardless of where it's coming from.

I like writing about the issues we all bump up against as we get older, but I try to present them in a fun way.

While I would agree that I write about serious subjects, and that they're not necessarily the most pleasant subjects or even the most pleasant people, as a writer I just think about the humorous aspects of these things - that's what keeps me going when I'm writing a story.

If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find that very interesting.

I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.

In today's time, writing stuff that actually happened is touch-and-go, because you don't want to be too personal. If you are, then it probably won't relate to a mass audience. A lot of times you have to make it sound like it's about everybody else, but you really went through it.

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.

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.