It's hard to look too grand when you're led by someone who looks like a pudding with legs.

When you write your first novel you don't really know what you're doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first 'Once upon a time'. I'm not one of them. Every once upon a time for me is another experience of white-water rafting in a leaky inner tube. And I have this theory that while the Story Council has its faults, it does have some idea that if books are going to get written, authors have to be able to write them.

What was new was the fact that, despite my heart doing its fight-or-flight, help-we're-prey-and-HEY-STUPID-THAT'S-A-VAMPIRE number, I was glad to see him. Ridiculous but true. Scary but true.

Tell me who you are. You need not tell me your name. Names have power, even human ones. Tell me where you live and what you do with your living.

I didn’t want to know that the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid not only really is there but used to have a few beers with your dad.

I wondered what you'd have on the side with a plate of Deep Fried Anxiety. Pickles? Coleslaw? Potato-strychnine mash?

Never assume. Never make plans. Keep doing the press-ups and deep knee bends: you'll need all your strength and flexibility when your life suddenly implodes. Maybe it won't — some people do lead enchanted lives — but odds are that it will. Some time.