I started my first novel when I was 10, and have produced thousands of pages of juvenilia since.

I don't have a day job, so I read any time of day.

It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history.

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do anything.

Most romances aren't swept aside by big historical events. Most romances in the history of the world fall apart because of other, smaller happenings. History can sometimes be in the background, the thing which instead of rupturing your life merely irritates you by pressing itself now and then into the foreground.

I never really have blank page syndrome. I don't get blocked. I have a plan for my novel before I start which, although incomplete, probably contains enough material for several novels by a quieter kind of writer. And I try to get my arms around that material and see where it takes me.

I'm reasonably good at talking onstage, but actually holding court in a pub is all to do with power dynamics which I don't think has anything to do with fiction.