Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I'm finishing, even if it's turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writers must negotiate this, and if they don't admit it, they're not being honest.

I know, speaking for myself, no matter what I'm able to do, no matter what book comes out and ends up on paper, I always had something bigger and grander in my head.

I just don't feel much interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.

So my character on 'Tyrant' is a chap called Barry Al Fayeed, and he is the second son of a fictional Middle Eastern dictator. But, he has grown up since he was young in America. He's trained as a doctor. He's married a beautiful American girl, had two kids, so he's very much an American.

A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

When you're a kid, you just hope you make it to the big leagues. So to get to go say you're going to play in the World Series, it's an incredibly special moment. Up there with getting married and having kids, it's right up there with one of the best days of my life.

The last time I saw him he was walking down lover's lane holding his own hand.