“It’s wise to plan early on where you’d like to go, do serious self-analysis to determine what you want from a writing career . . . When I began, I thought I’d be comfortable as a straight genre writer. I just kept switching genres as my interests grew. I’ve since been fortunate that–with a great deal of effort–I’ve been able to break the chains of genre labeling, and do larger and more complex books. But it’s difficult, and few people who develop straight genre reputations ever escape them.”–Dean Koontz