TRACY CHEVALIER

Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.

My writing routine is: get son off to school and sit down at 8 A.M. I read what I wrote the day before, and then write longhand, into a notebook. I prefer paper and pen because it feels closer to my brain.

I try to write 1,000 words a day - about three pages. When I reach 1,000 words I feel good. Less than that: a failure. More than that: tired.

As I get older, I use less jewelry - necklace or earrings each morning, not both; my clothes are getting more basic - fewer colours and simpler cuts; and my make-up is stripped back to basics.

As a reader, I happen to like turning pages and wanting to know what happens next.

I read a lot of fantasy. I adored 'Anne of Green Gables'. But my favourite books as a child were probably Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' series, about a pioneer family in the mid-19th-century American west. I often thought of them as I was writing 'The Last Runaway'.

Younger women tend to be busier, wearing more layers and more make-up. I don't know if it's because older women are more confident, or just that we don't care any more. But that pared-down approach is the same with the sentences I write; I take out adjectives and adverbs and keep the description to a minimum.

Normally book ideas come to me in a moment.

It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.

You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.

Say something worth the words.

I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.

Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.

The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there's a lack of resolution.

It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.

I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

I have spent my life waiting for something to happen,’ she said. ‘And I have come to understand that nothing will. Or it already has, and I blinked during that moment and it's gone. I don't know which is worse — to have missed it or to know there is nothing to miss.’ Falling Angels

Over his shoulder I saw a star fall. It was me.

You know I don’t listen to market gossip,” she began, “but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter’s name is mentioned.

I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home

I find that when I come out of the library I'm in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.

So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.