Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

When you read a piece of writing that you admire send a note of thanks to the author.

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

Writing a teen character is something I wanted to try again for a long time!

When I was a teen I thought I would have to choose between my writing or my music or my art but it turns out it's a difficult juggling game but I can do all of them.

The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do aided by modern technology which enables me having long since moved beyond longhand to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes.

My first job after college was at Magic Quest an educational software startup company where I was responsible for writing the content. I found that job somewhat accidentally but after working there a few weeks and loving my job I decided to pursue a career in technology.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.

The typewriting machine when played with expression is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

Writing I'm convinced should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher ' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.

I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears.

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'

I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal because if you lose it then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel I try and fill up notepads.