It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.

I was already in a band, and the teachers called my mum in and said: 'Abbey's so clever, it's a total waste if she follows her dream'. But I never wanted to do a job I didn't love, and I'd always wanted to be a model or an actress or a singer.

I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.

My dad keeps joking about sneaking into my grandparents' house and switching out their HBO for PBS so they think I'm on 'Downton Abbey.'

'Downton Abbey' is one of my favourite shows ever - it's just beautifully filmed, and the stories and characters are so wonderful.

Abbey Clancy is incredible. I saw a picture of her in a white suit recently, and she looked amazing. Victoria Beckham always looks classy, and I like Coleen Rooney's style too.

The girls in 'Downton Abbey' do what they do so well, which is make it so natural despite the fact that you're living within these constraints and taking so much from the research aspect of it.

After spending the last few years working on a serious novel set in Chechnya, I was drawn to both the brevity and casualness of Twitter, and wrote a series of tweets titled 'The Erotic Inner Life of Mr. Bates from Downton Abbey.'

I don't tend to watch TV. I'm like a Netflix junkie. I watch a lot of documentaries and movies on Netflix. I like 'Downton Abbey.'