When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.

The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.