I think I have sort of gravitated toward issues that I don't know the answers to, because that's what's more interesting for me to write.
I don't have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It's about really putting yourself in their shoes.
I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point.
To this day, 'The Duke and I' remains particularly close to my heart; I felt it was the novel in which my writing took a huge leap forward.
Generally, if you preface an interview request with, 'I'm an author writing a book,' for some reason, that seems to open a lot of doors.
I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.
And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.
I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.
I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don't know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter.
I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I'd written, I don't want to leave that behind.
Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.
Writing for me is a kind of compulsion, so I don't think anyone could have made me do it, or prevented me from doing it.
Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.
I'm incapable of writing without social commentary. I like to think that it's integrated and not really heavy handedly didactic.
The biography I've written about Wendy Wasserstein will almost invariably be different than the one anyone else would write.
I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.
When I see these guys write all this macho stuff I want to smash their heads.
When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.
Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.
I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.
Writing is so much more productive when it is set on fire, for then and only then can you feel the passion spewing forth from the writer’s heart.
