“I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attenti…” — Ronald Frame

What appears on the page comes out of your experience, and no-one is going to see it in quite the same way - so, that being so, you're already doing something in a thoroughly individual and idiosyncratic way anyway.

Originally I wanted somewhere to set my short stories about the sort of people I recognise having grown up with. Carnbeg was staring me in the face all the time, only I had somehow failed to see that. Not seeing the wood for the trees, I suppose.

A writer's life suits me. It's fairly, well, other people might think it was actually rather dull, but that's fine because I feel that my imagination is enough to kind of keep me happy.

I think, when you are writing non-fiction, you feel there's an obligation to get it absolutely right, so all your factual details have to be, have, you know, to go through a long list of them and tick them. I'm not saying that's not important in fiction, but I think you have a bit more leeway; you can suit yourself.