Baking makes me focus. On weighing the sugar. On sieving the flour. I find it calming and rewarding because, in fairness, it is sort of magic - you start off with all this disparate stuff, such as butter and eggs, and what you end up with is so totally different. And also delicious.
I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, 'I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever.'
Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words 'for ever.' But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don't like doing it.
Love is an emotion. It can't be seen or touched, and it is experienced differently by everyone, therefore it is difficult to measure.
Love and kindness go hand in hand.
Optimism can be relearnt.
When you're a mass-market writer, people think that you can just decide 'this happens, this happens, this happens', whereas with literary writers it's coming from their soul and their core. But with me it does come from my soul and my core, and my soul and my core often go AWOL, and then I've nothing to write.
I'd rather dig a ditch than go to a dinner party with people I don't know.
Regardless of the gender of the highest wage earner, the balance of power in the relationship will suffer if the higher earner uses control of the purse strings as a system of reward and punishment. It will also suffer if the lower earner takes a chippy, haughty attitude to spending money they haven't actually generated themselves.
My mother is the best storyteller. And her mother was too.
I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.
I'm not looking for pity, I'm really not, but I'm constantly uneasy and every day it is pretty much like getting up and going to war. Once I shift into the mindset of 'Yeah, you're alive. It's tough. Let's do what we can today,' it's easier.
I know of people who don't believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike, say, a broken leg, you don't know when it'll get better.
Bizarrely, I actually feel safer the older I get, like people will expect less from me, and I can become more and more invisible, yet more and more eccentric.
I like hoodies. They just make me feel safe.
Here's how it is: I feel guilty about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.
At 30 I thought my life was over. I thought I'd have made something of myself by then, that life would somehow have made the necessary arrangements - but actually I had nothing.
Every day I wake up afraid that I won't be able to write, that today is the day it has left me.
I'm quite introverted but I'm not shy.
There's no doubt that relationships do suffer when circumstances change profoundly.
