Writing is hard work, and fun, and requires you to keep your backside in a chair when you would sometimes like to put it elsewhere. So the only wisdom is the advice to keep at it, I guess.

It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

You eat canned tuna fish and you absorb protein. Then, if you're lucky, someone give you Dover Sole and you experience nourishment. It's the same with books.

When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don't belong in a psych ward, I don't think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things.

I don't for one second think about the possibility of censorship when I am writing a new book. I know I am a person who cares about kids and who cares about truth and I am guided by my own instincts, and trust them.

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.