I'm a fan of music, first and foremost. So I do things from the perspective of a fan.

Right now, musically I'm inspired by everyday people.

When I'm in the mood for room service, my favorite order is a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

The people have allowed me to - they've respected my choice of wanting to be like, a little, you know, a baby alchemist, and just trying to mix different cultures together and things that I think are interesting.

We all know far too many stories where the third generation just destroys everything that the first two have built up, and I certainly hope my family are different because I've worked too hard and my father has worked too hard for it to be given away.

I read a lot of fantasy. I adored 'Anne of Green Gables'. But my favourite books as a child were probably Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' series, about a pioneer family in the mid-19th-century American west. I often thought of them as I was writing 'The Last Runaway'.

I consider 'Dreadstar' to be an extension of my family, so it took me a while to feel comfortable letting anyone else take care of this project.

When my Mexican-born grandfather, Rafael, immigrated to work in the mines of the American Southwest, where he eventually settled with his young bride to raise 15 kids, he did it to give his children a better life.