She still had her bad days, no question, when the black dog of depression sniffed her out and settled its crushing weight on her chest and breathed its pungent dog breath in her face. On those days she called in sick to the IT shop where, most days, she untangled tangled networks for a song. On those days she pulled down the shades and ran dark for twelve or twenty-four or seventy-two hours, however long it took for the black dog to go on home to its dark master.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.

Maybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should.

Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

The idea of some kind of objectively constant, universal literary value is seductive. It feels real. It feels like a stone cold fact that In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, is better than A Shore Thing, by Snooki. And it may be; Snooki definitely has more one-star reviews on Amazon. But if literary value is real, no one seems to be able to locate it or define it very well. We're increasingly adrift in a grey void of aesthetic relativism.

I got my heart's desire, and there my troubles began.