Living in Sydney, I've taken the chance to start surfing again. One of my best memories of growing up is catching my first proper wave and surfing across it and my brother cheering at me from the shore.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bored me.

I think it's a mistake to think, 'Am I going to write a young adult book, or do I desperately want to write a book for adults?' I think the better ambition is to try to write someone's favorite book, because those categorizations of adult, young adult, become kind of superfluous.

The first book I remember loving was 'Grug and the Big Red Apple.' The first film I saw in the cinema was 'Grease.'