I think I was always attracted to writing. I always wanted to write because for me it was magic to get a piece of paper and put words on it. As I’m always saying, to put together words that were never before put together by anybody. To take two words that were never joined together like a “scintillating turnip.” I would put words together like that just to keep the language fresh. When I was nine or ten I was trying to write a detective novel, an English detective novel, set in London, which I had never seen. All I knew about London was what I read in English detective novels. So I was always up to something like that, and writing little playlets that I’d make my brothers act in.