David Holdaway was my stage name. I was an actor for about eight years in the '90s. I had to change my name because there was another David Nicholls, and I thought if I changed it to my mother's name, she'd be touched.

...and once again Dexter is struck by how easy conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind

Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.

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.

…and you smile back and try not to think about the fact that you have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to each other.

We're not ourselves, are we? I'm certainly not myself, not anymore. And you're not either. You don't seem yourself. Not as I remember you.

There's no shortage of orphans in 19th-century literature, but it's hard to find a single happy, communicative, functional parental relationship in the whole of 'Great Expectations,' even among the minor characters.