I have no problem in moving a date one way or another or coming up with a subplot that gets my characters in (or out) of a fix more rambunctiously than the extant records show.

If you’ve been hurt and you’ve grieved and you’ve been through the mill, it takes a long time to get over it.

It’s always been important for writers to be disciplined but now even more so. In addition to the traditional displacement activities like cleaning the fridge or eating cake writers are faced with a plethora of...

In the 1950s at least less was expected of women. Now we’re supposed to build a career, build a home, be the supermum that every child deserves, the perfect wife, meet the demands of elderly...

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.

If there’s one shade a woman of colour can’t wear it’s got to be the one everyone expects, hasn’t it?

Such a night cannot be shaken from a woman’s memory. Such a night changes your life forever.

At the end of the day, that’s what a family is – a group of different people who accept each other.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

We might give her presents, tell some tales, but would she ever be able to really understand what the journey had been like for us?

As it stands there is a very strong argument that as the book trade becomes increasingly corporate it’s our literary heritage that is at risk – a vital part of our culture.

For a writer it’s a genuinely interesting and hopefully profitable era that makes a variety of books available to a variety of readers, extending both what’s available and who gets to read it.

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.

There’s nothing like a military man, even out of uniform.

If we don’t value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that) then what kind of culture are we building?

Sometimes you don’t even have to have sex at all, and for that kind of sicko, you charge double.

I am more one for the story, I think, than the action.

He often came back ‘all thinky’ from work.

I knew that I was talented. I was positive about that. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was talented at, but I was ambitious enough to wait it out and see what turned up.

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

Google maps are one thing but there’s no substitute for pounding the beat and I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to break into the back of the houses on Belgrave Place....

The 1950s is a key decade in the 20th Century. Each year has a distinctive flavour.

I have a really vivid imagination and I find it difficult to read scenes of complete graphic violence. That’s not to say that graphic violence does not exist. It’s just that I find it quite...

You couldn’t predict what was going to happen for one simple reason: people.

I know a lot of writers, and everyone works differently, but this is something that we truly have in common across all genres – the fiction has to be real inside your head.

The net has provided a level playing field for criticism and comment – anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion – and that is one of its greatest strengths.

Being able to read well in public and talk about your work in an engaging fashion is part of most writers’ job specification.

I’ve found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It’s possible to make a connection with any kind of writing – as long as the writing is good.

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.

Once you’re on the pleasure express, it’s hard to get off and switch to another, slower service.

Aunts offer kids an opportunity to try out ideas that don’t chime with their parents and they also demonstrate that people can get on, love each other and live together without necessarily being carbon copies.

A writer is like a stick of rock – the words go right through.

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they’re best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish – we’re famous for travelling in search of adventure.

I’m proud of the culture I come from – we’re a small country and a close-knit community.

Edinburgh is a comfortable puddle for a novelist.

We are living in glorious days where each readers’ voice can be heard.

She picked up the stout and took a sip. It slid down her throat like silk.

The financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.

All those kisses. There must have been a thousand. They engulfed me like some kind of all consuming dream where I became very alive and very relaxed at the same time.

It was clearly a lot more difficult in the field than in the office, where you could keep your distance and maintain a calculated composure. Being faced with real people was a far tougher call...

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.

Sometimes life isn’t what we want, it’s what we get.

He prefers his adventures second hand.

In the middle section of the book Mirabelle breaks into not one, but two houses near Belgravia Books. I had fun scoping these out – checking which windows looked least secure and figuring out how...

I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we’ve come from.

We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in reading and writing since the advent of the Gutenberg press.

People are so different in wartime. No one gets to be ordinary. Not really.

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.

Vesta was so good with paperwork – you could hand her a file of drab, seemingly dull information and she’d construct a story from it worthy of a novel.