There is no panic you can't allay, no problem you can't solve.
Lauren Weisberger
So much of writing is done alone in a room in sweatpants, with only the Internet for company.
Here in New York, we're media obsessed. Writers write about writers who write about writers and reporters and freelancers, and it's just a festival of information. We're all analyzing and examining and predicting, and I can't imagine that it's like that everywhere else.
I have a whole iPod full of exceptionally bad music, truly awful stuff including a disproportionate number of one hit wonders from the early '80s and lots of hair bands. I find it utterly impossible to love a song until I know every single word, so listening to live music or new bands is pretty much out.
So much of my own life inspires what I write. Whether it's work, family, friends, motherhood, I am a writer who tends to write what she knows. In 'Revenge Wears Prada,' a great deal of my own life finds its way into the book.
Sadly, the only constant in my writing environment stems from some inexplicable need to listen to the news. CNN loops over and over in the background from the time I wake until the time I finally, blessedly, fall asleep.
I got an offer at 'Vogue.' And I desperately wanted to work in magazines. My interest wasn't in fashion, but when you get an offer right out of college for a magazine that big - I decided that it was probably better to start at a big name magazine, even if I wasn't necessarily fascinated with the subject.
I'm not a person who would get up at 5 A.M. to write, but I could sacrifice my Friday night and just order in dinner, sit at home and get into it.
After my second, I started working with a nutritionist who specializes in post-baby weight loss. It's called Simply Beautiful Mom. I'm in restaurants all the time because of work, and she actually will look at menus online before I go and she says, 'These are the three things you're allowed to order. Don't even open a menu.'
If I could figure out a way to earn a living while traveling for the rest of my life, well, I think that'd be a dream come true.
The closest I get to any sort of 'designer' items would probably be my weakness for jeans - they don't have to be any particular brand, but I'm willing to do almost anything, go anywhere, spend obscene amounts of money for that elusive 'perfect pair.'
I definitely like clothes as much as the next girl, just not to the extent of people who work in the fashion industry.
Friends would not say I'm a laid-back person by any means.
Of course I consider myself a Jewish writer - I am one! All of the protagonists in my five books have been Jewish, and I wouldn't be surprised if all my future main characters were as well.
Naturally, I mine my girlfriends' lives for good anecdotes and stories - so many of their experiences find their way into my books.
I am obsessed with planning travel! Not just traveling, which I love, but the whole planning process and all the details that go into it. I subscribe to all these travel blogs and airline forums and research hotels and activities and destinations for hours on end, and I volunteer to plan trips for everyone I know.
I'm addicted to 'Lonely Planet' guides. Naturally, I'll buy one whenever I take a trip somewhere, but it goes beyond that: I've begun buying them for cities and countries I just hope to visit one day.
I'm a child of the '80s, so like everyone else, I love all those classic, formative movies - 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off,' 'Pretty in Pink,' 'Sixteen Candles,' 'Dirty Dancing,' etc., with 'St. Elmo's Fire' and 'The Breakfast Club' existing on a separate, slightly higher plane.
I'm always in search of those books where you don't want to stop reading, and 'Me Before You' is at the top of that list.
I've read pretty broadly on the Holocaust - both fiction and non-fiction - and to me, 'The Lost Wife' is one of the best. The horrors of war serve as a backdrop to a love affair that spans a lifetime, and that love story stayed with me long after I put down the book.
It's the hardest thing in the world to dedicate to writing, but if you do that even once a week, after six months or a year you'll have something substantial.
I admit to subscribing to all the celebrity rags. The best part of being an author is if the celebs aren't being ridiculous enough, you can just make it up.
I love clothes, but I love them in a very 'regular person' way.
As long as I'm able to actually maintain a career where I can write full-time, I'll be thrilled.
I think that anyone who likes writing views 'The New Yorker' as the, you know, pinnacle of the publishing world. If you get 50 words published in 'The New Yorker,' it's more important than 50 articles in other places. So, would I love to one day write for them? I guess. But that's not my sole ambition.
