Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.

The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.

I never get any protests from children. All you get are giggles of mirth and squirms of delight. I know what children like.

It is most unlikely. But--here comes the big "but"--not impossible.

When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.