Rule one of reading other people's stories is that whenever you say 'well that's not convincing' the author tells you that's the bit that wasn't made up. This is because real life is under no obligation to be convincing.

If you give a writer a pile of blank paper and say you can write anything you like on any subject you want at any length you want, you will probably never get anything at all, whereas if you have 900 words to write, and it's fiction that is somehow op-ed fiction, and it needs to tie in with Halloween . . . okay, those are my constraints, that's where I now need to start building something.

I don't know. I had to be something, didn't I?

Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths.

Media. I think I have heard of her. Isn't she the one who killed her children?

I guess it's just another one of life's little mysteries." "I'm tired of mysteries." "Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like salt in a stew.

When I was very young, I would occasionally stick 'f****' where I knew something contentious might happen so that the editor could remove the word 'f***' very proudly and leave whatever else was around it.