The most I have to fear while hiking in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, the two historic British counties closest to my city home in Birmingham, is whether or not the mud awaiting me in the narrow lanes ahead is deep enough to foul my socks.
All the uncontrollable and unpredictable parts of my life - from the actual creation to my emotional responses to the finished book - I've succeeded in banishing to the office. And I think I'm happier for it.
In the U.K., a lot of writers won't show up to support activist issues because they figure they're already repairing the world. I don't want to be one of those people.
For all the splendours of the world's greatest galleries, visitors are likely to be kept at arm's length, spectators of a world that can seem too rarefied to let them in.
As a natural historian, I don't believe in the consciousness of rocks or the opinions of rainbows or the convictions of slugs.
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.
