My fictitious characters will take the bit between their teeth and gallop off and do something that I hadn't counted on. However, I always insist on dragging them back to the straight and narrow

How frightening, that one person could mean so much, so many things.

I want to know what they look like, their height, and colouring, physique and speech pattens.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.

..the best is only bought at the cost of great pain...or so says the legend

Perfection, in anything, is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.