When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.
It takes between three and six hours to make each snowball, depending on snow quality. Wet snow is quick to work with but also quick to thaw, which can lead to a tense journey to the cold store.
Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.
The road passed through a curtain of pine forest and came out on a flat, rolling snow field. In this field the sprawled or bunched bodies of Germans lay thick, like some dark shapeless vegetable.
I have always had strong maternal instincts. Even when I was still a child I cut out pictures of prams from newspapers and imagined the feeling of pushing my own pram through fresh winter snow and seeing the wheels' tracks behind me in the snow.
My grandfather taught me generosity. He sold snow cones in Harlem. I went with him at 5 and he let me hand out the change and snow cones. I learned a lot in the couple of years that we did that.
Disney had made such a great deal of money on Snow White that the banks gave him the go-ahead on the next three films. But he was heavily dependent on the foreign market.
Yes, the first job I had at the studio was Snow White. I don't like the term particularly, but I got stuck with the human characters. They just didn't have that many people who could draw humans.
