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I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

Essentially, I'm a storyteller, and I make my living by telling stories, be they music or nonfiction or fiction.

I try to write about things, places, events, and phenomena I know about personally. That helps make the novels more genuine.

I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down-the truth is much more bizarre.

I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.