Sometimes I get an idea when I'm taking a walk. I'll be walking along, looking at the lake—Lake Superior, that is—and all of a sudden I'll think of a chapter title that was giving me trouble. Sometimes I get an idea in the shower. The first line of Mr. Blue Jeans: A Story about Levi Strauss, came to me there. Isn't it great? When I'm writing a book, my mind works on the book even when I'm doing something else!

People always asked Dr. Seuss how he came up with ideas. If you read Chapter 4 of Oh, the Places He Went; a Story about Dr. Seuss, you'll find out the wacky places Dr. Seuss found ideas. At least, where he said he found ideas.

I write at home on a laptop computer that sits on an old writing desk—the kind with cubbyholes. Stamps and paperclips fill several of the cubbyholes. Toy cows occupy the rest. This is a desk where I played "office" and pretended to write as a child.

My mother once made the mistake of giving me a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. What a glorious mess.

Where is the first place I go when I'm doing research for the biographies I write? Of course, the library. Because I was head of the children's department of my local library before becoming an author, I know most of the librarians. If I didn't know them, I would get to know them. Librarians are some of the best people in the world. And they know where to find any information you want. So, I begin my search at the library. (Now I use the Internet, too.) With Dr. Seuss, my search took me to a relative of his who was extremely helpful. If I can find a person to interview on my subject, that is THE BEST.

I had worked for twenty years as a librarian before becoming an author. I had seen hundreds of books, thousands of books, millions and billions...well, you know the rest. Some of the books I saw I thought, "I could write something that good." Some of the books I saw I thought, "If only I could write something that good." I wanted immediately to be able to produce a book like Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

So I tried to write a picture book. It was called The Baby on the Plane. I sent it to twenty-seven publishers. Guess how many rejections I received? That's right. Twenty-seven. So I started thinking, "Maybe I won't write a picture book just yet." But I still desperately wanted to publish a book.

Truthfully, I wanted to see my name in the card catalog—now it's a computer catalog. So, when the chance came to write a book about Judy Blume, I pounced on it.

I didn't write a lot because schools didn't emphasize writing when I was growing up as they do now. Kids today are very lucky that teachers are helping them learn to write.

What I did as a child, however, was read and read and read. And I believe that by reading I learned how to put together a sentence and how to form sentences into paragraphs and to join paragraphs to make chapters. So keep on reading and you'll learn to be a writer.