Writing is a strange synthesis between the two parts of your mind: the analytical side and the side that knows nothing at all, and you have to allow the dreaming side free rein.

Respect the way characters may change once they've got 50 pages of life in them. Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to take account of these changes.

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.

In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

Life should be embraced like a lover.

Listen to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted "first readers".

At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet.