"I get my ideas from experience, from imagination, and from the world around me. I never get my ideas from other peoples' books. I get upset by the number of children who think it's perfectly all right to steal anything from a book.

I write with a Pilot Rolling Ball pen on a yellow legal pad before I put my writing on my computer. By the time I finish my first draft, I've written between the lines and around the edges, and on the back of the paper. It's a mess. Some parts I revise half a dozen times. Some parts I don't revise at all. Then I type the manuscript on my computer. I'm tired when I finish a book.

If you want to become a good writer, read widely and master the tools of writing. I know that spelling, punctuation, and grammar are boring, but they are necessary."