Feel Good....

I knew the kind of books I loved myself, which perhaps aren't considered great literature, but are great stories, with strong characters and smart observations.  You might not stop and gasp over every sentence, but these books get put in lots of beach bags, and taken on lots of aeroplanes, and read in lots of hospitals: they keep people company and they make them feel good.

Jennifer Weiner  www.jenniferweiner.com/

Picking up Rhythm

When you feel the story is beginning to pick up rhythm - the characters are shaping up, you can see them, you can hear their voices, and they do things that you haven't planned, things you couldn't have imagined - then you know the book is somewhere, and you just have to find it, and bring it, word by word, into this world.  

Isabel Allende  www.isabelallende.com/