Starting a new novel is a little like starting a new relationship - you have to be prepared to commit for at least three years and put up with the domestic tedium as well as the emotional highs!

Danger is an aphrodisiac.

This may be the very nature of love, a passion as fickle as the sea, full of certainty when the object of desire is absent, yet dubious when confronted again with the lover's presence.

As a reader I like both great characterization and fast moving plots. The challenge is to balance the both and not compromise one for the other.

Two bones fell down my chimney and into the bedroom this morning. Hysterical thing to happen to a thriller writer. Murderous ravens perhaps?

Trust is won not given.

The novelist is more a marathon runner than long-distance runner and the kind of courage it takes working in such isolation cannot be underestimated. I really respect my fellow writers on this front.