I need my trusty Mac laptop to write. I can't work with anything else. I'm used to the feel of the keys. I also like, more than anything else, Apple's Pages.

"Night sky was black and then there was blood, morning crack of light on the edge of the earth." The ideal first sentence contains within it an intimation of the whole book 'Red Sky in Morning'. That's what I was hoping for.

I'm not quite Honoré de Balzac, but I can't start without a strong espresso. After an hour and a half or so, I need another. Nothing else, mind, and certainly not alcohol. Can't imagine anything more ridiculous than drink-writing.

I particularly like the catchphrase of Leonardo Da Vinci: Ostinato Rigore! (Which means, pretty much, Relentless Rigor).

I need my trusty Mac laptop to write. I can't work with anything else. I'm used to the feel of the keys. I also like, more than anything else, Apple's Pages.

I write in Times New Roman, 12 point, and arrange the margins so that the screen looks like a page from a book. This spurs me on to make the writing as perfect as I can make it.

Sometimes, I like to imagine the perfect reader - the reader who not just understands what I am about, but soaks up every word as if it were written for them. I have been fortunate in that I have got to meet such readers now and again.