I want to help others 'think first' before diving into a pool or lake to prevent these types of life-changing accidents. I know I'm in a very fortunate minority and hope my story inspires both adults and children to be more careful.
I would hope that we could have this in an adult fashion and stop demagogueing the issue anytime you talk about any substantive reforms that will actually save social security and save Medicare and save the system from imploding on itself.
I feel lucky that my career so far has included books for adults and books for kids. They're equally important to me, and I hope I get to continue writing both.
I do like playing the darker side of life but as much as the lighter side as well. They all resonate out of the same place, which is that everyone has a story to tell. Depending on their upbringing and their history, it determines who they are as an ...
One of the scary things is that, when you're a kid, you look at your dad as the man who has no fear. When you're an adult, you realize your father had fear, and that you have it, too.
I was born in a hurricane in Pensacola, Florida... my dad was in the military, so we moved all over the place. But I consider myself a southerner from Louisiana. I've lived in Texas for most of my adult life.
I remember once, we got an interview, and he said, 'Dad, these people are writing about me like I'm an adult. Don't they know I'm a kid?' I have never tried to encourage him to get a music image like other musicians have.
If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
As a rule, I try to avoid the French Quarter because of the crowds, especially Bourbon Street. But hey, some people love it. A great, wild, adult thing to see is the costume competition in front of the bar Oz on Bourbon early morning on Fat Tuesday.
My parents were children during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it scarred them. Especially my father, who saw destitution in his Brooklyn, New York neighborhood; adults standing in so called 'bread lines,' children begging in the streets.
I think the value in books like mine, and a great number by other talented writers, is in the ability to bring dark subjects into the open where they are not so dark, where they can be talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.
We have had such a letter movement on two occasions in Denmark when more than a quarter of the adult Danish population participated. Such an achievement, however, demands a really great effort and also a great deal of money.
When you're an adult, when times are good, entire years go by in what feels like the space of one season. But the worst trick time plays on you is just how slowly the worst times in your life take you to live through.
I write adult fiction, but a good 40 to 50 per cent of my readers are teenagers. I love that if they have to grow up and move past JK Rowling they can move to me. From Jo to Jodi!
There's always that discussion about fiction about how do you market it - these are books for boys, these are books for girls, these are books for adults. Actually, they're just stories, and if they're good stories, then they surpass those boundaries...
I want to point out to adults that there is a world of good material available to you now in comic form - in this medium - and learn to give it your support because the more you support it, the better the material will be as it comes out.
I try to sign for as many kids as possible. Kids come first, and I'll always sign for a kid before an adult. It's funny, because I was never big into autographs as a kid. The only player who I ever wanted an autograph from was Dave Winfield.
Originally I had planned to write just a couple of children's books and then, return the focus on adult literature. A funny thing happened along the way - I kept having new ideas, and then I looked up one day, and 30 years had passed!
The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older.
I published only in academic journals in philosophy until I was in my 40s, but I had been writing fiction and poetry my whole adult life - without ever once trying to publish it, and rarely letting anyone read it.
During the period of house arrest, I had an electronic manacle around my leg for 24 hours a day, and for someone who has tried to give others liberty all their adult life, that is absolutely intolerable.
