To my mind, if an idea isn't popping into one's head very five minutes, then one probably isn't a writer. Ideas come from reading thousands of books through the years, from massive life experience, and, I suppose intellect and imagination.

I always found literature at school to be boring. I actually failed English in my final year at high school, despite the fact that by that time, I had already been published for 7 or 8 years.

Within months of leaving school, I won a nation wide competiton, and the directof of a nation wide newspaper who was the judge told me it was the finest piece of writing he had seen in 20 years. I was 18 years old.

To me, even the fact that one is discussing the author of the book tells me that the story is boring. I think far too much emphasis is put on the wrong type of books in English literature. Unfortunately, for some reason, English lit teachers want to use fiction to teach life lessons.

The terrible truth is that readers don't read in order to learn life lessons. They read in order to escape life.

When my daughter was 10 years old, she could hardly read. I was horrified. By that time, I was reading between 2 and 4 books a day. (The library was around the corner.)

I took out some old Enid Blyton books from my childhood and read a chapter to her for two nights running. The third night she came to me to ask me to read the next chapter. I told her I was busy cooking and asked if she could read to me. She declined and went back to her beadroom. And then silence reigned.

I went to see what was happening. There she was, on her bed, reading. And from that day, my daughter became a reader. She is 36 years old, and never a day goes by without her reading for a couple of hours.

Many years later, I asked her why she hadn't been able to read at school. She told me that the books were boring. I couldn't agree more.

I failed English, not because I couldn't write or wasn't reading. I just thought that the literary books I was forced to study were the biggest load of garbage and beyond boring. I have never moved past that opinion. In fact, I find it gratifying that, in the UK, literary publishers are beginning to close their doors because people no longer buy literary books.

They read to escape...