The Novelist, Quite Rightly, Fears

People Tend To Think Of Their Lives As Having A Dramatic Arc, Because They Read Too Much Fiction.

Some People Have Human Muses - Mine Is A City. I Feel A Startling Ambivalence Towards London, But For Better Or Worse My Work Has Come Utterly To Depend Upon It.

Sometimes The Crowd Is The Madness - At Others It's The Absence Of The Crowd That Is.

From Time To Time, As If Heaven-sent To Annoy, Someone Will Ask Me If I'm Self-disciplined When It Comes To My Work. I Usually Look Witheringly At Them And Snarl, 'what Do You Think?' I Mean, How Do You Imagine Anyone Writes A Quarter Of A Million Words A Year For Publication?

So I Was Smacked Up On The Prime Minister's Jet – Big Deal.