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I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

I have a lot of objects in my space, little things, reminders, memories.

There must be a little memory bank, a library or storage unit in my brain, that just tucks away memories of other people. I suck in as much of life as I can. I don't do it deliberately - I'm just curious. Dangerously so. I collect visual and aural patterns, physical human patterns, from experience.

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

I have this magpie instinct for the next glittering object. There are one or two things I know I can't write about, though: DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor.

I wish I could read minds. It's a dangerous superpower, so I'd wish for it to come with a switch where I could turn it off if I wanted to. You'd learn a lot about people, that's for sure!

I keep my own personality in a cupboard under the stairs at home so that no one else can see it or nick it.

I'm like a magpie. I use lots of different things to build a character.

I am a great observer of things, and I do it all the time. I store stuff; I use it as an actor; that sort of recall, of emotional memory and images of things, just tastes of things.

I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It's like having a mental workshop.