While working in advertising, I channelled my creative energy into elaborate escape fantasies: cake making, dog breeding, the Peace Corps.
Self-knowledge is essential not only to writing, but to doing almost anything really well. It allows you to work through from a deep place - from the deep, dark corners of your subconscious mind.
I'm constantly snatching my books out of the hands of precocious ten-year-olds who are simply too young to read them, despite parents insisting that dear Octavia has a reading age of 28. I remember trying to read 'In Cold Blood' at the age of twelve, and realising that just because you can read book doesn't mean you should.
One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.
As a person with the retentive mental capacity of a goldfish and a dislike of repetition, I frequently make use of the thesaurus built into my Microsoft Word U.K. Software.
I, a late riser, fantasise about getting up every morning at 5 A.M. to fetch the horses in from the fields.
