It's not just that toil allows the appearance of spontaneity. It allows the actuality of spontaneity.

Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly.

I don't know anyone who actually likes the dark or night-time. I don't care how much they say it doesn't bother them. That's why we used to huddle in caves and light fires when the sun went down.

The face of totalitarianism turned out to be a mask - obviously - but the face of Capitalism has no face at all.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can’t be like any other author’s really.

I'm fortunate in that I'm a lecturer too and this gets me out and about and away from the computer. I also have loads of friends all around the world, plus a core group of special people in my life that I can lean on, chat to, or just hang with.

Writing can be a very solitary business. It's you sat at a desk typing words into a computer. It can get lonely sometimes and lots of writers live quite isolated lives.