"You learn... the ways in which different types of people in the business respond to writing.  There's a way that agents respond. .... Then there's the way that other writers respond, which is they'll just tell you how they would have written it themselves.  And if they're a romance writer, their opinion of your novel isn't going to be that helpful.  But it's not that you don't necessarily engage those people, it's just [that] you learn the filter by which you're going to assess their feedback."

"The No. 1 piece of advice [my mother] gave me was, 'write the book you want to read.'  And if you're not writing the book you want to read, something's wrong."

"At some point, you have to say 'I'm the writer, it's my job to figure out where I'm going to go with it,' you know?"