"For seven of those [ten] years, I taught writing and English as a second language. Before that, I had 2 million odd jobs. I mowed lawns, worked as a companion, edited and proofread manuscripts - anything I could find to support my writing habit."

"Every day, I worked with whatever time I had. I would look at my schedule and say, 'Tomorrow I have 20 minutes to write' or 'Wow, I have three open hours tomorrow, so I'll write as close to a full chapter as I can.' One summer when I was really busy, I wrote from 5 to 7:30 a.m., and sometimes I wrote late at night - but I always wrote every day. Because I was juggling four timelines, and because of the mystery, I had the book mapped out before I started."