Have you ever suffered from writer's block? What seems to work for unleashing your creativity?

I think I suffered from writer's block for all the years before I began writing. Finally, though, all the pent up desire just burst through and I began a screenplay. Since then, I do get blocked from time to time, but it's never crippling. What I do when it happens is play a Mozart CD, get on the sofa with a pad and pen, tell myself I don't have to write if I don't feel like it, all I have to do is listen to the music. Amazingly, I'm writing before I know it. Peanut butter helps, too. I used to think that was insane, but then I read that peanut butter is full of vitamin B, a natural tranquillizer. It seems to help dissipate the tension, the anxiety. Or maybe I just like to think it does because I love it. But every writer has to discover his or her own trick for getting around the block.

How was your experience in looking for a publisher? What words of advice would you offer those novice authors who are in search of one?

My first two books were submitted to publishers by my agent, and both sold within a few weeks, with no problem. This time, it was more difficult. My previous publisher turned down one of the first drafts of The River, by Moonlight, which didn't surprise me much as it was so different from my preceding books. The first two, though I always considered them "literary" fiction, could be marketed as more commercial works, which was impossible for this one. When my agent didn't want to submit it anywhere else without changes, I didn't know what to do, but then I thought, well, I'll just find another agent. (In my experience, editors never read anything unless it's submitted by an agent.) Though I had lots of credits, that turned out not to be so easy.

And after two years of looking, I gave up, decided not to waste anymore time, and to publish the book myself. I can understand someone not wanting to do that. If I were younger, I might have been willing to wait longer, try harder, and who knows but I may eventually have found an agent who saw in the book what I (and, by then, many other readers) did. So, I suppose my advice to a novice author would be to follow the rules, to read the literature, find the agents who handle books like the one you've written, send the query letter, the sample chapters, whatever the agent requests, and hope something good will come of all your hard work. It usually does. It just takes time and persistence.