The Writing Life Is Essentially One Of

When Anyone Starts Out To Do Something Creative - Especially If It Seems A Little Unusual - They Seek Approval, Often From Those Least Inclined To Give It. But A Creative Life Cannot Be Sustained By Approval, Any More Than It Can Be Destroyed By Criticism - You Learn This As You Go On.

Death, The Real Simile For Disease - For When We Are Ill, Do We Not Always Feel Like We Are Dying, Even If It's Only A Little? - Remains, Despite Our Secularism, The Most Metaphoricised Phenomenon Of All.

My Novels Tend To Come About From A Fusion Of Two Big Ideas, Creating A Critical Mass That Then Fissions, Throwing Off Hundreds Of Other Particles, Riffs, Tropes And Characters.

Without A Shadow Of Doubt, Trafalgar Square Has To Be One Of The Most Crap Urban Public Spaces In The World.

Lives Don't Divide Up Into Chapters. People Don't Just Talk, While Nothing's Going On In Their Head, And Then Respond. You Know, None Of These Things Actually Happen.