Nicolle Wallace

I was very much inspired by the things that I'd seen and done in politics, but I was also desperate for a complete departure from the reality of my political experience. 'It's Classified' and my previous book 'Eighteen Acres' are both works of fiction, but if they do seem realistic, it's by design.

I wasn't the only one that saw Sarah Palin vacillate between glorious highs on the campaign trail - and, you know, while she was speaking and at the convention - to really troubling lows when she seemed stumped in interviews.

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.