But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.

People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with.

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.

Wolf Hall attempts to duplicate not the historian's chronology but the way memory works: in leaps, loops, flashes.

Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't ­really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.

'Show up at the desk' is one of the first rules of writing, but for 'Wolf Hall' I was about 30 years late.

For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.