It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things.

The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your head, there's nothing in it for you. I write in longhand using disposable fountain pens on the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then I rewrite some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side.

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.