Books opened up a whole new world to me. Through them I discovered new ideas, traveled to new places, and met new people. Books helped me learn to understand other people and they taught me a lot about myself. ... Some books you never forget. Some characters become your friends for life.
My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book. They become so real to me, I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.
A library is where you meet fascinating characters you never forget.
I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!
I stop and think before I start a new book and ask myself do I really want to spend the next year or two or three with these characters because if I don't, then I shouldn't be writing about them.
What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.
The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.
Some characters become your friends for life. That's how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.
The parent reads the book. The kid reads the book and then they can talk about the characters instead of talking about themselves. You know there's a connection even if you don't talk about it when you read the same books.
