Every Well-written Book Is A Light For

The Draft That Finally Goes To My Editor Doesn't Get Into Her Hands Until I Have Read It Out Loud Innumerable Times - Sometimes Into A Tape Recorder - To Make Sure That It Sounds Right.

When I Get To A Point In My Book Writing When I Don't Know What I'm Going To Do Next, I'll Come Back Look At Underlined Passages And See If The Images I Wrote Still Have A Certain Amount Of Resonance For Me.

There Ain't No Point In Making Soup Unless Others Eat It. Soup Needs Another Mouth To Taste It, Another Heart To Be Warmed By It.

So Here I Am, Sending A Two-ounce Mouse Down Into A Dungeon With A Sewing Needle To Save A Human Princess, And I Don't Know How In The World He's Going To Do It. I Have No Idea. That Was The First Time It Occurred To Me That Writing The Story Was Roughly Equivalent To Despereaux's Descent Into The Dungeon. I Was Tremendously Aware Of That As I Was Writing. I Thought, "i Have To Be Brave Or Else I'm Not Going To Be Able To Tell It." But It's The Only Way That I Can Write. If I Know What's Going To Happen, I'm Not Interested In Telling The Story.

It Distresses Me That Parents Insist That Their Children Read Or Make Them Read. I Think The Best Way For Children To Treasure Reading Is For Them To See The Adults In Their Lives Reading For Their Own Pleasure.