If I write too much of anything for too long, I burn out on it. So it helps to vary my output from year to year.

Publishing is the final step in making a book; if I was afraid to publish one, I wouldn't write it in the first place.

Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)

The one thing that does happen, every time, though, is that I never get to write a book until I've already been thinking about it for a period of months to years.

I write exclusively using computers. Pens and typewriters can fsck right off - I wrote my first half million words in my teens on a manual typewriter (had to trade it for a new one due to keys snapping from metal fatigue) so I am not a pen or typewriter fetishist.

If an idea is compelling enough it'll stick in my head until I am forced to write it. If it's forgettable, who cares?

No two books come out the same way. Some I write by the seat of my pants; others are planned in minute detail.

Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.

I write almost entlirely on Macs, because: Windows gives me hives.