I've recently rediscovered Anthony Trollope. I used to read him back in college, and a friend turned me on to a whole new series of his work, 'The Palliser Series.' It's a series of seven or eight books.

The characters that populate my books are global nomads in their own right, keeping multiple homes around the world and constantly jet-setting to new places.

I remembered that my grandfather had spent his teenage years in Shanghai and that he went back after he finished medical school to work there in a hospital. So I went back into my family archives and was able to find out his exact address; it was a street that was in the French Concession.

My grandmother used to get her shoes made in Paris in the '30s, and they would be shipped to her in Singapore.

I'm reading six, seven, eight books at a time.

Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash.