I was the family alien. Both my parents are quite creative, but I was... appalling... always putting on little shows. I was rather a shy child, not a natural performer, but there was a performative edge to everything I did.

I was quite a shy child - not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

Quite often, little germs of ideas have come from something that I've observed or someone's told me. The process of it becoming fiction is expanding and extending it: stretching the rubber band of reality.

I really don't know where my interest in death comes from. Maybe I've just got a twisted imagination. The truth is, I haven't had a hugely eventful life - maybe I'm compensating in my creative life. Or maybe I'm just a bit sick.

And I admit it: there's a rather dirty thrill when 700 people laugh at a joke you've written.

This child is on the edge.