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

Genuinely good people are like that. The sun shines out of them. They warm you right through.

But try as I might, I never got to eat any of her pastries, and do you know, she never even offered me one.

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

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

We all know that the great memories of our childhood are the little triumphs - it doesn't really matter whether that was in writing, art, on the hockey field or on the football field. It's something that makes you feel - 'I can do this stuff'.

I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.