When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book.

I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important.

For me a thriller is a very carefully structured story.

I've worked for law firms, I've worked for corporations, and for the past 20 years, I've been writing working for myself, and believe me it's a lot better. That's a big part of the James Bond panache, that you're responsible, 100 percent responsible, for the success or failure of your mission in life, whatever it is.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.