I got out of difficult situations when many of my classmates didn't because I was smart, and I was lucky, and my parents were amazingly literate and helpful.
I was determined to become a criminal lawyer and help look after the poor.
As a child, I would demand that visitors to our house tell me a story. I was intensely interested in everything - still am.
In the 1970s, I used to buy opals and moonstones at the Queen Victoria Market, which were seen as old-fashioned and too heavy at the time.
Sometimes it's hard to start, but once it gets going, once you reach the tipping point - usually between chapter seven and nine - then it's like hanging onto a large snowball as it hurtles downhill.
I have been reading crime books ever since I was a child, but I had never tried to write one.
You need a crime, a detective, and the solution.
I like writing books. I really love words. I love to read.
There's something magical about the idea that you can write something down and someone else can read it. I'm still mildly agog about that.
I don't think the process of writing books is in any way sensible. It's not logical, and it's not reasonable. I do write very fast, and I just do it in a binge. Other people binge-drink; I binge-write.
I research every possible bit of information I can find. Then I use about a tenth of it. But I have to know all the information first; otherwise, I'm not going to convince myself, and if I can't convince myself, then I'm not going to convince the reader.
I liked the Ballarat train as a child.
