It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

When I write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books.

If you do enough planning before you start to write, there's no way you can have writer's block. I do a complete chapter by chapter outline.

If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles. You can learn all kinds of ways to say things.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

At least I can write.

People say, 'What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?' I say, they don't really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they're gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.

Normally, I spend a week on the outline and take two weeks to write the book.

Well, I hate it when authors come into a school and they say to kids, 'Write from your heart, only write what you know, and write from your heart.' I hate that because it's useless. I've written over 300 books - not one was written from my heart. Not one. They were all written for an audience, they were all written to entertain a certain audience.