For 'The Gift of Stones,' I spent an afternoon chasing a flock of Canadian geese.

Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free.

We do have a problem with geese, but we take care of it the best we can.

All it takes is a flock of infected geese or ducks landing near a chicken farm, and because they are so close in these open pens, it can go like fire.

I am not - thank heavens - one of those 'driven' writers who spend a fortnight buckled with empty fright over an untouched page only to wake at two in the morning feverish with paragraphs.

Sixteen years as a freelance features journalist taught me that neither the absence of 'the Muse' nor the presence of 'the block' should be allowed to hinder the orderly progress of a book.