As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.

And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.

I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.

Books are like people. Some look deceptively attractive from a distance, some deceptively unappealing; some are easy company, some demand hard work that isn’t guaranteed to pay off. Some become friends and say friends for life. Some change in our absence - or perhaps it is we who change in theirs - and we meet up again only to find that we don’t get along any more.

Many childrens writers dont have children of their own

How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again.

I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.