Quotes from Rebecca Serle

Writers often like to talk about how intuitive the writing process is, but in truth, building a book is a remarkably unintuitive task. Or, to put it more accurately, you need a lot more than intuition. You need plot and characters. You need a setting. You need a theme that is relevant and supported by your text.

Of course YA authors have a responsibility to their audience.

One of the things that defines YA is a really strong narrative. Adults love YA because, at the end of the day, they're good stories and page-turners. The other element is emotion. The teen years are a very emotional and intense time, and I think it's a time we that we can all relate to and remember.

I remember what it feels like to be fourteen or sixteen, to have the world folded out in front of you, and to have a million choices ahead. I also remember what it feels like to be so open and impressionable and to want something so badly it's impossible to see that maybe it isn't the best thing for you.

I was a children's yoga instructor in high school, which was a lot of fun but hard work. I remember once trying to teach 13 three year olds how to do tree pose... not so easy.

I think perfect happiness has a lot to do with peace. For me, I get peace from writing, from the people in my life, and from yoga - om!

I fell in love with the young adult space watching 'Dawson's Creek' and 'Roswell.' I've been a fan my whole life, and it was always a dream of mine to contribute to that area.

I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.

I am a young adult author, and so are quite a few of my friends. We all write books for the same demographic; many of us are even published by the same publishing house. Two of us, in fact, share the same editor.

Shakespeare is so fundamental to the way we see story. A tremendous amount of narratives come from him - more than many authors are aware, I think.

At 22, and on my fourth day in New York, I was lucky enough to meet my mentor.

Whenever someone asks me for career advice, I always tell them to find a mentor. Find someone who has done what you want to do, and study the way they got there.

'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte has been my all-time favorite book since I was in middle school.

The truth is that 'Twilight' is not a story about Bella and Jacob. It's a story about Bella and Edward. That was the story this writer wanted to tell.

I often lament that new picture books don't get read because the classics hold up so well. It's a ridiculous complaint because, um, the classics hold up so well.

Picture books have terrible PR amongst the children of this country. Ask any librarian: after a certain age, children just aren't interested in the picture book section anymore. It's filled with moms, strollers, and unbalanced toddlers.

I don't have to mumble something under my breath when someone asks me what I do anymore. I can just say, definitively, 'I'm an author.' And the best part? That's not a myth. That's just the truth.

No love story ends or begins out of accordance with how it needs to go.

'Goodnight Moon' is a staple of any nursery bookshelf. So, too, are 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' and 'Madeline.' These books are just as much a part of mainstream reading culture as 'The Catcher in the Rye,' and they are passed down from generation to generation.

It's devastating when that happens, when someone just ups and leaves for no reason, but love does sometimes go wrong.

The adult fiction and writing for children portions of my MFA program were kept very separate, and there was a stigma around those 'kid people.'

I've tried in the past to blog about ghostwriting and have failed. I have a lot of opinions on the whole issue, and I'm constantly censoring myself to make sure I don't just sound like a bitter writer.

My first book, 'When You Were Mine,' got optioned for film and went into preproduction as 'Rosaline.' That was the classic model: Hollywood calls, options book, and that's it. You sign on the dotted line.

I am a very big 'Vampire Diaries' fan, and I was a huge Stefan and Elena fan. That love story was one of the most beautiful ones I had ever seen on screen. I loved it.