In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to?

I’ve turned down opportunities constantly. I turn down invitations to do things for money. I have almost no interest in making money.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don’t go near the online bookies – unless it’s research. […] Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven’t written yet.

Don’t read your reviews. […] Don’t write reviews. (Your judgment’s always tainted.) […] Don’t write letters to the editor. (No one cares.)

No alcohol, sex or drugs while you are working. […] No going to London. […] No going anywhere else either.

Take no notice of anyone you don’t respect. […] Take no notice of anyone with a ­gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.

To get this prize, I was required to talk about how important a particular European feminist woman writer had been to me. Now the truth was that I had never managed to finish this feminist writer’s book. It did not speak to me. It would have been a lie to claim that she had any major influence on my thinking. […] I could have said that this woman was important to me, and I could have talked the talk, and I could have been given the prize and a shiny present. But I didn’t.