And I do pay a lot of attention to how things feel underneath my feet. It's a way of transporting yourself somewhere that you're trying to write about - closing your eyes and imagining what it feels like to literally be in that space. Maybe because of this weird aura thing I find it a bit easier to put my body in an imaginary space.

And I do pay a lot of attention to how things feel underneath my feet. It's a way of transporting yourself somewhere that you're trying to write about - closing your eyes and imagining what it feels like to literally be in that space. Maybe because of this weird aura thing I find it a bit easier to put my body in an imaginary space.

I think there's over-telling sometimes, in fiction. For instance, I'm a big fan of horror movies, but I could always lose the last third of them. There's the brilliant exciting scary thing that's going on, and then they have to show you the monster, and the monster turns out to be a giant spider from space and then you push it over and it's dead. It becomes mortal and it has human needs and it always sort of feels like a shame. Maybe because of all the cop shows and such, we're a generation that needs to have problems solved for us in fiction.

I'd love to write full time. But it's not something that is due to me because I'm a writer. Times are very hard for doing the thing you love, but the payoff for not having much money is that you love your job. A balance would be good. But yes, given infinite funds, or a guaranteed regular income of some kind, I'd happily shut myself away and write stories for the rest of what I've got in me.

I have quite a close relationship with violence and horror. They are enjoyable and terrible. I try and offset the horror with a sense of satisfaction or humor. You can't write a book that is entirely dark without having little spots that hopefully make you laugh out loud.

As long as the reader is enjoying a story and the writing, it doesn't concern me if people don't understand why it's running backward or if it's running backward. I think disorientating a reader a bit can be really nice. Making them work and bringing their own past to play in a novel.

I've talked to a few writers who have had childhood illnesses. The sense of convalescence - the feeling that you're waiting to become a real person - is quite an interesting thing. You're seeing all of your friends doing amazing things and you're just there, in a void, feeling a bit stupid. I wouldn't be able to say what I'd have been like without it, but maybe I'd be incredibly high-powered and successful. It also forced me to spend most of my time in my imagination.