I’ve always loved telling stories—poems, short fiction, scripts—but I didn’t ever think I’d write novels. I didn’t think I could hold something so large in my head. But when I was a college sophomore, I realized I was afraid to try, because I was afraid to fail. I sat down and wrote my first novel, and it was terrible (as all first attempts should be), but it taught me a valuable lesson: I COULD. I’ve never stopped.

I try to write for at least two hours in the morning. That might not sound like much, but there’s a difference between writing time and typing time. I think about the scenes I’m working on for hours/days/weeks, so when I sit down for those two hours, I’m typing the entire time. I don’t let myself write more than three hours at a time, because I prefer to have momentum the next day. My afternoons are usually taken up with business (there’s a ton of work and admin that goes into being an author outside of actual storytelling) and my evenings are for me.

The knowledge that my dreams are big and life is short. I know that might sound flippant, but it’s the truth—there are so many stories I want to tell. I don’t feel like I have time to waste. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t get stuck, or feel daunted by the task. But my want is always louder than my fear.

I identify with all of them, in some way. The good, the bad, the stubborn. I tend to break off a small piece of my personality and then grow someone very different. But there are a few characters that have felt the most me: Kate Harker, Victor Vale, Lila Bard, Henry Strauss.

In the beginning, I didn’t put much thought into it. I’m Victoria, so I wrote as Victoria. I began in YA and MG, so when I wrote my first adult novel (adult meaning for grown-ups, not adult as in inappropriate), I thought it best to go by V.E. on those, so one of my youngest readers didn’t pick it up by accident (more power to them if they picked it up on purpose). But there was another reason—adult genre, specifically fantasy, can be a sexist place, and I didn’t want readers discounting my work because I presented femme. But as time went on, and I became better known, I found myself wishing I’d only ever gone by V.E. It was a personal choice—one stemming from a desire to protect my identity as a human behind my persona as an author. So from here on out, my books will all be labeled V.E. Schwab. Apologies for any confusion!

I like to think of books more like puzzles, they have a lower age advisory, but no upper age limit. I’m not one to tell a young reader they aren’t ready for something, if they believe they are, and I don’t think we ever age out of reading something—we come back to it with different eyes, new perspectives. Young readers, like older ones, have the incredible ability to decide for themselves, and put a book down if it isn’t right for them right now.

My kittens, Thomas and Chauncey, who make frequent appearances in my Instagram Stories, live with me in Edinburgh. My dog Riley is a Romanian rescue and a very sensitive girl who found life in Edinburgh a little too busy, so she lives at my parents’ house in the French countryside along with a very stately Golden Pyr mix named Max, an overweight cat named Beau, a ferret-like feline named Bea, and five chickens, all named after booze.