The best part about writing is the moment a character comes alive on paper, or when a place that existed only in my head becomes real. My books are based on things that have happened to me, things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings. Keeping other ideas away while I'm working on one story is what's difficult. Getting an idea for a book is the easy part. When the writing is hard and the words are flat, I'm not very pleasant to be around. When my work is going well, I wake early in the mornings, hoping it's time to get up. A novel for adults, because it's longer, takes a year or more. I spend from three months to a year on a children's book, depending on how well I know the characters before I begin and how much research I need to do. Tending to other writing business, answering mail, and just thinking about a book takes another four hours. On a hard-writing day, I write about six hours. It's as though pressure builds up inside me, and writing even a little helps to release it. I'm not happy unless I spend some time writing every day. By the time I graduated with a BA degree, however, I decided that writing was really my first love, so I gave up plans for graduate school and began writing full time. I had my first short story published when I was sixteen, and wrote stories to help put myself through college, planning to become a clinical psychologist. Telling stories, anyway, if not writing them down. I guess I've been writing for about as long as I can remember.
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