Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.

The sooner you learn to finish things, and as a matter of course finish your creative endeavors, the better. It took me a long time to learn that.

I started blogging in 2006 when I had sold my first novel but it had not yet been published, in those anxious months in between while I learned the whole process.

I've always been a reader and a writer.

When I turned to writing fantasy, and writing for young people, it was joyous. It was like discovering an underground lake of ideas that went on forever.