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In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.

I have a fondness for writing about precocious, troubled teenagers, who are alienating, but kind of endearing. It's from remembering so clearly that time in my own life. I experienced myself as more dramatically troubled than I was, but I just remember how it felt.

Growing up in the '70s and '80s, science fiction and especially fantasy had such a stigma attached to them. I felt so punished and exiled for being devoted to these things.

My extreme characters are in a state of rebellion or who are being ostracized or being misunderstood, or misfits or trying to fit in and fighting for their rights to love, live, and co-exist. They sort of mirror my own demons.

I don't think I could play a character that I couldn't relate to somehow. I'm not unfamiliar with frustration, anger, shame, helplessness and a load of other emotions that make up our psycho-soup. I try to focus on that frustration, that sense of unfairness, and multiply it.

Although I'm not particularly troubled myself, I do have a lot of empathy for troubled characters.