You made a lot of mistakes, and you wrote a lot of crap. But it was all part of the learning process.

A lot of guys spend their lives saying no because it's an easier way to keep your job.

Barry and I were in the middle of building a house, and I was in the midst of having a nervous breakdown, because that's what you do when you build a house.

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

When I was thirteen, I was in a supermarket with my mother, and for no reason at all, I picked up a science-fiction book at the checkout stand and started reading it. I couldn't believe I was doing that, actually reading a book. And, man, it opened up a whole new thing. Reading became the sparkplug of my imagination.

My dad was an adventurer, my mother a romantic. When they met in college, both were creative writers; the writing was a bond.

I'm an emotional sort of person in general and I have a vivid imagination, so I feel the whole spectrum of emotion strongly when I write.

What has started to interest me is how you use all the different disciplines and tools we have at our disposal, and that includes going into different art forms, like music and movement, because often they can tap into things that characters can't necessarily express through words. Audiences really enjoy that total experience.