I work full-time and have two kids, so the answer to this question is not the one you're going to want to hear: I give up a lot of sleep. And I also have a very supportive partner and a village of help that allows for Sunday mornings in coffee shops and writing weekends away a few times a year. But the day to day answer is that I often sleep very little and ignore other things like cleaning and laundry in favor of writing time.

I once met Judy Blume and told her that her books made me a reader, and then that made me a writer. And then I promptly walked out the door and burst into tears.

I will read everything Ann Patchett writes forever and ever. I interviewed her once and, again, promptly burst into tears as soon as I hung up the phone.

My favorite book: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because a really good looking guy once wooed me with an annotated copy. Also it's brilliant.

I wish I could say it was consistent. I map out concepts loosely, but then spend more time on characterization and seeing where those insights take a story. I can't always write every day, but I do try to "touch" what I'm working on at least once a day—whether that's writing a couple hundred words, typing something up in my Notes App, or just daydreaming.

I actually do have a process for revision now though, and it's built entirely from Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done, which is the most brilliant writing book I've ever read.

I actually like to think this is something I do a decent job with, and I think the secret is to get rejected a lot. Then you kind of go numb to it, and it becomes just another thing you do. But, more helpfully, I also try to think about rejection along the lines of what I can and cannot control. "I can't control if publishers will want to buy my book, but I can control how good the book I write is," etc.