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.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

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

I read 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford again every so often.

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.

I've never really understood that whole thing of writers avoiding other writers' novels while they're working on their own.

When I'm writing new material, I never have any trouble coming up with ideas.