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" Between planning family vacations and running away for novel-writing retreats, I've spent much of my adult life questing for the perfect beach escape, renting cottages all along the Florida Gulf and up and down the Atlantic Coast - as far north as Nags Head, as far south as Key West. "

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" Critics will tell you the 'meet cute' is a tired old writing cliche, but the thing is, cliche's work - because they ring true with the reader. "

Mary Kay Andrews

Cute

Tired

True

" As soon as I started reading, I found myself drawn to fictional character's homes as much as I was to the characters themselves. "

" Some of my most enjoyable moments as a writer have come while conjuring a meet cute. "

" I wanted a garret hideaway to write in like Jo March in 'Little Women.' "

Mary Kay Andrews

Write

March

" I wasn't always overweight. I was a skinny little punk of a kid with severe asthma. When I got married at the age of 22, I wore a cut-down size eight wedding gown. "

" For years, I swore I couldn't work out because my own sweat gave me a rash. "

Mary Kay Andrews

My Own

Own

" I guess because I'm a washed-up journalist, I always do a lot of research. "

" As a hopeless romantic, I'm drawn to stories of improbable beginnings. "

" On my first trip to New York in the 1980s, the first place I wanted to visit was the Plaza Hotel, home to Kay Thompson's Eloise. "

" Modern love - in the movies and music - especially country music - is full of tales of women exacting sweet revenge on the men who done them wrong. "

" My characters are turned upside down and trying to reinvent themselves but don't need a white knight. They can save themselves in a crisis. "

" I try to start drinking water as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning. "

" I was supposed to be working on 'The Weekenders,' but I was blocked. I got this crazy idea that I would make Christmas stockings out of blankets. "

" The best way to heal a broken heart, it turns out, is to find a way to move past the hurt. "

" We are writing fiction, but we are trying to create a world that's believable. "

" Although I married a sports-loving jock, I myself am not only not athletic, I am acutely, completely uncoordinated. "

" I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been. "

" I had never thought about writing a novel. But I had two young kids, and I realized that if I could write a novel, I could work at home. "

" Southern women, especially upper-middle-class women, care deeply about appearances and what other people think. "

" One of the things that attracts me to vintage and antique things is they have stories, and even if I don't know the stories, I make them up. "

Mary Kay Andrews

Know

Antique

" I want characters I can live for in a setting that makes me feel like I'm there. "

Mary Kay Andrews

Want

Live

" My ideal beach house has bookshelves full of paperbacks that can tolerate a little sand, a DVD library that includes some Disney classics for the little ones, board games, and jigsaw puzzles. At least one big flatscreen television is a must. "

" For a writer, capturing that elusive Christmas morning magic can be deeply problematic. "

" The story of my holiday decorating is if Ralph Lauren was trapped in a 1950s Woolworth, this is what it would look like. "

Mary Kay Andrews

Holiday

Trapped

" My protagonists have problems that a new pair of shoes won't solve. Retail therapy is not a bad thing, but it's not going to fix their lives. "

" Slipcovers are great because they can be laundered after those all-too-frequent sippy cup and red wine incidents. "

" I always wanted to use my newspaper background in a novel. "

" My perfect beach town isn't a fancy resort or glitzy planned community. It's a place with a hometown grocery that has decent meat, seafood, and a deli; a couple of ice cream shops; and a handful of good restaurants - where the island-wide dress code is 'no shoes, no shirt, no problem.' "