Interview

"Many readers ask me where I get my ideas. This is probably the hardest question to answer, because a book contains hundreds, maybe thousands, of ideas, squirming and changing and evolving as I write. I don't know the story before I begin. I only have a vague image in my mind of a character and a place. Then I write in order to find out what the story is. I want to know why the character is in this place and what is happening now, what happened before, and what will happen later.

"Sometimes people and events in my "real life" spark ideas for stories. In Absolutely Normal Chaos, for example, Mary Lou's family is very much like my own family. Like Mary Lou, I have a sister and three brothers (my brothers' names are the same as those in the book), and when I was Mary Lou's age, my cousin came to live with us, but none of the things that happen to Mary Lou's cousin happened to my own cousin. In Walk Two Moons, the trip that Salamanca takes with Gram and Gramps follows the same route that I took with my family when I was Sal's age, but we weren't searching for my mother (she was in the car with us) and we didn't face the danger and difficulties that Salamanca does.

"The fictional town of Bybanks ...