you can't run away by ignoring the truth. Truth follows you; it comes in through open windows and drifts under doors. When it comes to sorrow, no one… - Alice Hoffman

I never even believed in happiness. I didn't think it existed. Now look at me. I'm ready to believe in just about anything." (p161)

For me—and I think for most writers—you're a reader first and then it just happens. You so love it that you want to be part of it, and you start writing.

I've always tried to go directly from sleep to the computer, before I have the time to start censoring myself. I like to get up at 5:00. I do my best work early in the morning before the world's awake. For the kind of fiction I write, which is emotional fiction, you have to let go. Let the walls down, the defenses down. Don't worry about what people are going to think.