I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is it makes the series limited you can't write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.

The earth was made so various that the mind Of desultory man studious of change And pleased with novelty might be indulged.

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class the novel is serious the novel is work the novel is conscientious application why the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought if really want to write it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day and I figured I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.

You hear the best stories from ordinary people. That sense of immediacy is more real to me than a lot of writerly literary-type crafted stories. I want that immediacy when I read a novel.

When I first thought of the idea for 'Sweet Valley High ' I loved the idea of high school as microcosm of the real world. And what I really liked was how it moved things on from 'Sleeping Beauty'-esque romance novels where the girl had to wait for the hero. This would be girl-driven very different I decided - and indeed it is.

Because if one is writing novels today concentrating on the beauty of the prose is right up there with concentrating on your semi-colons for wasted effort.

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.