Imagine staying awake all night not because you're worried about the future but because it's FUN

If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.

She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.

I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.

Read a book at the right age and it will stay with you for life.

This is me.’" He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first

At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.