I was always determined that one way or another I would force a book on the world, even if I had to resort to writing one about a tabby cat who solves mysteries.

I would love to learn how to air kiss non-awkwardly.

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.

I hate going back over what I've written. It makes me feel physically sick.

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

Mystery, investigation, false leads, solution - we associate that structure with genre fiction, but it exists in our real lives, too. There's no reason why literary fiction shouldn't be able to acknowledge that and make it fresh.

There's never a bad time to put earplugs in. They're the kind of thing you can reject as a bit lame, but somebody told me to do start wearing earplugs and it turned out to be great advice.