“One Minus One’”and “Barcelona, 1975” are more or less autobiographical.

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 first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.

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

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.