Younger women tend to be busier, wearing more layers and more make-up. I don't know if it's because older women are more confident, or just that we don't care any more. But that pared-down approach is the same with the sentences I write; I take out adjectives and adverbs and keep the description to a minimum.

Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.

So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.

Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.

Say something worth the words.

It's those little daily incidents of life that are dramatic, and if you put a frame around it , suddenly they become much bigger and much more important than you ever imagined.