I still get rejections - frequently - and my goal isn't to never fail, to never be turned down, but simply to succeed more often than I don't. And in order to do that, I have to constantly put myself out there, to judgment, critique, and rejection.

I almost always start with setting! I have to know the world before I know how to populate it. I have a tendency to play with doors - between life and death, human and monster, mundane and magic - and with 'ADSOM,' I knew I wanted to play with the physical doors between worlds.

I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

V. E. Schwab Quotes