I have been very lucky: my writing has taken me across the world, and I have seen some extraordinary sites and sights.

At the heart of every legend there is a grain of truth.

There really is no difference in the actual writing or plotting. I choose to tell different stories for the younger reader and, of course, I would never put sex and extreme violence in a YA book. But writing for adults and children requires the same care and attention.

He is many things - dangerous and devious, cunning and deadly, a good friend and an implacable enemy - but he comes from an age when a man's word was indeed precious.

But magic, like everything else, follows certain natural laws. Magic needs energy wherever it can find it. If no other source of energy is available, it will take the life force of the magician who created it. That is why every use of magic weakens the magician.

Every story starts with an idea, but it is the characters that move this idea forward.

The people that you work with are, when you get down to it, your very best friends.