There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
I have always been a dark writer.
I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.
Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.
When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share their thoughts, I see the world through their eyes and try to feel everything they feel.
There are writers, and I know some of them, who are very disciplined. Who write, like, four pages a day, every day. And it doesn't matter if their dog got run over by a car that day, or they won the Irish sweepstakes. I'm not one of those writers.
In my 10 years that I spent out in TV and film, I had my shares of frustrations and annoyances and disappointments, but also I think it was, in the long run, it was very good for me in a whole bunch of ways.
I'm one of those writers who say, 'I've enjoy having written.'
I suppose I'm a lapsed Catholic. You would consider me an atheist or agnostic.
I knew that, when writing a book, you're not constrained by a budget. You're not constrained by what you can do, in terms of the special effects technology. You're not limited to any particular running time.
I wrote six pilots, none of which ever got picked up. When you stop trying, it then it falls in your lap.
I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien.
The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy.
As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.
One of the things I love, and I'm a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise me, that are not predictable.
My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they're not even the same characters anymore. The body may be moving, but some aspect of the spirit is changed or transformed, and they've lost something.
I have files, I have computer files and, you know, files on paper. But most of it is really in my head. So God help me if anything ever happens to my head!
I spent a whole summer working on what proved to be 'A Game of Thrones'.
One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.
Believe it or not, I worked four summers in college as a sports writer covering baseball for a parks and rec department in Bayonne, N.J.
