I find that jazz loosens up the deep place of my mind, lets me find my own strange rhythms. Generally, I find the knottier the jazz, the better. Anything with singing is a distraction. Listening to classical music tends to have the unconscious effect of making my writing too smooth.

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.

While I read almost all my newspapers online, I'm not a big fan of e-books because I like to see what I've read and remember it. Books are a way of making memory physical.

"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 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.

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.

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