It's good to focus on the universal suffering that goes on in any war. Whatever the right and wrongs of the war, there is always universal suffering.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

I write fiction. I make things up, it's what I do.

It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.

Any story that gets us thinking, and particularly young people, thinking why? Whether it's as a result of reading the book, or coming out of the theatre or the cinema, I think we should just simply be asking the question 'why'? Why did it happen to those people? Was it necessary? And anything that gets us thinking like that is really important.

Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers