- Where do you come up with the ideas for your stories?
- They come out of the nowhere into the here. The Girls in the Basement send them up. I just listen and type.
- Do you write with an audience in mind?
- Well, me. I have to like it first. Then I think “smart, open-minded women.” Or “people in bookstores with money.”
- Do you write in chronological order?
- No, I tend to think in patterns, so I need to write different pieces of the book and see what happens when I put them together. That helps me build up the character arcs, although it can make plotting really difficult.
- Do you work on one story line at a time or are there multiple ideas going at once?
- There are always multiple ideas, but I really like to concentrate on one book at a time because I have to go into that world completely. Sometimes I can’t do that, I have to work on more than one book at once, and then my head explodes and I get cranky.
- Do you spend eight hours a day/ 40 hours a week writing or is it less structured?
- Honey, I don’t do anything for forty hours a week. It’s less structured. I like that. “Less structured.” Instead of “completely random and chaotic.”
- How long does it take you to write a book?
- By myself, eighteen months, give or take a year. The collaborations took nine months, but I only had to write half or a third of them.
- Do you have to do a lot of research for your books?
- I do a lot, but it’s always stuff I want to learn anyway.
- Is writing something that came naturally or something you had to work at?
- I work at it. I have scars. Hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
