Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30.

My writing style is very sensual, as in sensory detail

Perfection is an unattainable goal. It isn't going to be perfect. Just get words down on paper, and when you stumble to what you think is the end of the book, you will have hundreds of pages of words that came out of your head. It may not be perfect, but it looks like a book.

One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane.

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print

If people would write exactly what I wanted to read I wouldn't feel so compelled to write myself

Now that I'm being very successful, publishers are trying to mainstream me, but I'm unabashedly genre. It's what I like to read, what I like to write