The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books.
So I thought I should write five pages a day. And that's what I did. Eventually I had a book.
My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.
High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.
Only the sinner has the right to preach.
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, - something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.
It's not a case of: 'Read this book and then you'll think differently. I've written this book, and I don't think differently.
Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.
When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book.
With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.
To me, what makes an artist is a unique personality that they are not afraid to let show.
My life has been an open book, for better or for worse.
What you need to know about me is that I always just wanted to be a country singer. I didn't choose the path of television or being on magazine covers.
Science fiction writers aren't short of ideas. You can read a book, and it sets off a chain of thought processes, so it becomes a response to other people's books.
It's a novel experience to have one of my books read by a reading group.
Shoemakers and tanners form a symbiotic relationship out of necessity. One provides the leather while the other whips it into a glorious creation.
