I believed then - in a deep, easy way that is impossible for me as an adult - that there was more to this world than meets the eye. Trees had spirits; the wind spoke. If you followed a toad or a raven deep into the heart of the forest, they were sure to lead you to something magical.
Do me a favor - right now, today, start a list of all your crazy obsessions, the things that get your heart pumping, that wake you up in the middle of the night. Put it above your desk and use it to guide you, to jumpstart your writing each and every day.
At the heart of every story is conflict - whether external or internal, make it a good one, and remember that this problem is going to shape your character, leaving her forever changed.
Honestly, I feel pretty awed anytime I meet just about any writer. I get how hard it is to write and make a living from it, but there's also this almost magical force you need to tap into, and I'm amazed by anyone who can do it.
I practically lived in the woods when I was a kid, avoiding grown-ups and my dysfunctional family, pretending I was half-wolf, a feral child who napped in nests made out of ferns, ate wild blueberries, and wove sticks and feathers into her hair.
All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times.
I think we all have a kind of dark side, and that's what keeps life - and characters - interesting. That's one of the things that I'm drawn to write about again and again, the secrets we keep and how they shape us.
I have a friend who calls me the queen of the nightmares because I've always had really bad nightmares. I keep a notebook by the side of my bed, so I'll wake up in the night from a bad dream, and my heart's pounding, and I'm really scared, but I write it down, and sometimes I get ideas for books that way.
Some people say, 'Write what you know.' My thing is, 'Write what scares you.'
Although in my life the level of loss has never reached the extremes it does in 'The Winter People,' I certainly can identify with being both a daughter longing for her mother and being a mother who is almost scared by the intensity of her love for her daughter.
If there was a way to bring someone back, would you do it, no matter what the consequences might be? I know that for me, my logical mind says, 'Of course not!' But the truth is, when you lose someone who is so close to you, it's as if they are a part of you; there's always one more thing to say, one more moment you wish you'd had.
I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing the other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread.
I absolutely love writing about the things that scare me, the things that keep me up at night. I don't quite know why. Perhaps because so many things do scare me, and this is my subconscious way of trying to exercise some control over things that go bump in the night!
I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories.