I love love songs. But I love pop music as well: Girls Aloud, Kylie, the Spice Girls, East 17, Mika.
I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.
I surrendered to a world of my imagination, reenacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare.
People wonder aloud about whether I am an okay mother. That is obviously painful because it's so important to me. It's hard to hear that people think I'm not a capable mother and a good person, that they just think I'm nuts.
But Ship Who Sang remains my favorite story. I really rocked folks with that and still cannot read it aloud myself without weeping at the end.
Reading aloud could be humiliating, I was shy about doing it. Bear in mind I failed my English GCSE and A levels, which goes to prove that if I can embrace it, so can anyone.
With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.
We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.
I read my books aloud before they were published.
I didn't listen to Girls Aloud growing up - no way. Too cheesy, man!
