I try not to identify too strongly with any of my characters. I like to stand back and see them objectively. I think this is why I often use boys instead of girls, just in case I get too close and lose the overall picture.

I had written two or three books before my husband noticed that in every one of them a family member was missing. He suggested that it was because my father's death, when I was five, utterly changed my world. I can only suppose he is right and that this is the reason I am drawn to a narrative where someone's life is changed by loss.

There's nothing like the peace of the countryside, the quiet and the lack of distraction. It helps you to focus your mind.

Inspiration comes from the world around me. I'm an inveterate eavesdropper.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.

You can use existing music in a film, but creating a soundtrack is very different. One note can be enough.

True play is creativity.