For the first time ever I have my own writing room, and I adore it. Up until recently, though, I’ve written wherever and whenever I could: coffee shops, kitchen tables, even ...

Google, email and my children. And on really bad writing days, anything and everything.

Both. Pen and paper to plot and plan, but a computer when I’m actually writing.

A year or so. My favourite part of the process is the beginning, before I even write the first word. I like to spend a few months reading and dreaming and ...

Hmm… there are so many challenges along the way it’s difficult to choose just one! In the very early stages there’s the challenge of trying to uncover the identity of my ...

I spend a lot of time before I start the actual writing dreaming up my characters and plot. I read everything I can get my hands on around the subject so ...

The middle is definitely the trickiest part of the book to write: the introductory energy of the beginning has worn off and the ending feels an awfully long way away. Whenever ...

For me, it’s imperative. With small children I don’t have the luxury of time. I’m limited to a few precious hours at odd periods throughout the day. And even though there ...

Perhaps. But that’s as it should be: as with most undertakings, and certainly with most of the creative arts, part of the task is making it look easy. And of ...

That you get better if you practise. Thank goodness! It’s a great pleasure to be involved with a pursuit in which you improve with age.

Not as much as my novel writing influenced my PhD work. I chose my PhD topic so that I could research the sort of fiction that interests me. I’m drawn to ...

I was studying drama when I decided to give writing a try. I bought a notebook and started scribbling ideas and questions to myself, and I realised that it wasn’t performing ...

Although I was a voracious reader growing up, I never considered becoming a writer. It didn’t occur to me for a second that normal people could become writers. (Probably because all ...

I’m a fierce plotter and planner, and while I write on a computer, I always plot with pen and paper. I fill copious notebooks with scribbled story outlines, character ideas, questions ...

1. Read frequently and widely. You can learn a lot from other authors, both better and worse than you are! 2. Write daily, and always ...