Edan Lepucki

I recognize that I'm probably the luckiest novelist in recent memory, because Sherman Alexie, a writer I greatly admire, raved about my book on 'The Colbert Report,' and then Mr. Colbert himself urged his viewers to buy it - on his show and on Twitter.

I am always worried that over-planning and outlining will kill the magic of writing; most of the world I created in 'California' occurred via good old sexy sentence-making.

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process.

I'm a mother of a three-year-old, but when I started 'California,' my son wasn't even a twinkle in my eye. Because the book took as long as it did, I wrote it before I was pregnant, while I was pregnant, and as a new mother - so I enjoyed a diversity of experiences while creating this world.

I love how easy it is to run my business, Writing Workshops Los Angeles, with the help of email and my website. I love that I don't have to use cuneiform, a quill, or a typewriter to write my novels - I love to write on my laptop!

Amazon has historically been a bully, and I don't shop there. But I love Goodreads. For the record.

It's funny: when I set out to create the world of 'California,' I didn't give the type of apocalypse much thought... I simply set my two characters, Cal and Frida, in a depleted world and moved through it intuitively.

Before my book, 'California,' came out, I had modest hopes for it. Or, let's put it this way - I had the same hopes that every literary fiction writer in America has: I wanted the novel to be well-received, critically. As for sales? I didn't want it to disappoint, but I didn't expect it to be a best-seller, either.

Amazon is such a big player in publishing, but a lot of authors feel this connection to their publishing house and their editors who helped them get their books out there, so their loyalties tend to go that way.

If you don't ponder the end of the world on a regular basis, I don't think you're really human.

I wish I wasn't so in love, wasn't so interested, in the Internet. I wish I spent less time online and more time outside and in my head. Writing requires solitude and deep, deep daydreaming, and the Internet just kills that - its lure is toward the external; it asks you to flit from place to place.