When I sit down to write a story I already have the people. What are called the ‘characters’. Generally there is a man – or woman – at the centre, and others round about or opposite. I don't know yet what will happen to them, what they will do to each other, but they have converged on me and I am already involved in conversations, arguments, even quarrels with them. There are times when I say to them: get out of here. Leave me alone. You are not right for me and I am not right for you. It's too difficult for me. I'm not the right man. Go to somebody else.

Sometimes I persist, time passes, they lose interest, perhaps they really do go to some other writer, and I write nothing.

But sometimes they persist, like Michael's Hannah, for example: she nagged me for a long time, she wouldn't give up, she said, look, I'm here, I shan't leave you alone, either you write what I tell you or you won't have any peace.

I argued, I apologised, I said, look, I can't do it, go to someone else, go to some woman writer, I'm not a woman. I can't write you in the first person, let me be. No. She didn't give up. And then, when I did write, so as to get rid of her and get back somehow to my own life, still every day and every night she was arguing about each line.