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I always swore I would never write a book. But I read Clare Balding's and it was really interesting and so prettily written and lovely and not too revealing. I went to her book launch and met her editor who said 'why don't you think about it? You can do it however you want, based on your characters or you.'

I had novels to write, so I wrote them.

I knew I wanted to write novels, but I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more ways I'd find to screw it up.

I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

Last week I was just someone who had had a first novel published.

I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it.

I came to writing because I joined the North Clare Writers' Workshop, which met every week at Ennistymon Library.

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.

When I had worked on my first book, I had readily shown bits and pieces to everyone - for encouragement, to force myself to write.