Before 'Fallen,' I'd written love stories and more love stories. I'd fallen in love with love stories - but they were also beginning to feel just a little bit too insular, too small.
I tend to write some, then outline some, then delete some, then go back and rewrite some. I love revising and hate first drafts. I have to wear bedroom slippers. My current favorites come from the Zetter Hotel in London. They have little tobacco pipes on the toes.
People ask me, 'Why angels? Why paranormal? Why teens?' In the beginning, I'm not sure I knew I was starting down any of those twisted paths - paths that now seem so familiar to me that they are downright comforting. In the beginning, I was just writing about love.
Olivia Hussey from Zefferelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' makes the intense vulnerability of true love look magnificent.
At some point, I fell in love. Shortly thereafter, I got my heart broken. Sniff, sniff. And I realized at a young age - no matter what any adult literary critic would have us believe about female strength and autonomy - there is no test to strength of character like love.
Cooking is the best way to unwind at the end of a long writing day. There's something mindless and hands-on about cooking, which makes it feel like the very opposite of writing, which is heady but inactive.