I'm a professional writer and I consider it part of my job to publicise my work and these days part of that job is done online.
I spend a lot of time imagining things - in fact, you could say that imagining things is my job.
The broken spine of the book shows the webbing of binder's string, and my fingers have worn white spots in the cover.
I'm very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience.
When you think about the period in which Agatha Christie's crime novels were written, they are actually quite edgy for the time.
Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.
What used to be edgy (divorces) has become mainstream and what used to be mainstream (racism and sexism) has become shocking.
The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more.
I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion.
The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.
I'm drawn to the 1950s for lots of reasons - everything from the fashion to the increasing sense of freedom and modernity that builds throughout the decade.
While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.
Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.
The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum.
What do I have to say to the universe? A soul ought to have something to say to the universe if it's going to be immortal.
It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.
All around the Mediterranean you'll find cultures that believe men can't control themselves and shouldn't have to try.
My story is the story of many postwar British families. Upward mobility. A council house and then new affluence.
Sometimes I think I'd be perfectly happy to go on rewriting 'Tipping the Velvet' forever because it was so much fun.
The early '20s were like the waist of an hourglass. Lots of things were hurtling toward it and squeezing through it and then hurtling out the other side.
I used to hate flying. I would sit there, rigid, convinced that if I relaxed, the plane would drop out of the sky.
