We used to call it her Cinderella complex, because often when she had agreed to go out in the evening she would be seized by panic and announce that she had nothing to wear.

Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.

So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.

Once I spent a whole day there, a blade of grass in each hand to anchor me to the warm earth. I watched the sun rise, pass over my head and set. Ladybirds mated on my knuckle; a shrew nibbled a hole in my stocking while I tried not to laugh. Such a day was worth any punishment.

The Collector [John Fowles book] does such a good job of capturing the mindset of a capturer, and also that's become a banal trope of every second crime novel: the weirdo, fetishistic watcher/stalker/kidnapper/kidnapper of women or children.

Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.

I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.