Some writers start young. They were already churning out stories at school.

I was not like that. I was more interested in kicking a rugby ball over the yard gate.

After teaching English in Sweden, I moved to Japan in the early eighties. After a few years at a language school in Tokyo, I switched to a Japanese advertising agency.

Advertising copywriting is demanding. No word is wasted. I learned the hard way as my boss red-inked my copy to the bare essentials.

My subsequent twenty years with Reuters was more of the same. No room for verbal flourishes there either.

But the experience gave me the appetite to write novels. I just needed the space and time.

Now it is hard to imagine a day not bent over my laptop. Gazing out of my window in Devon, tapping out stories set in far-off Japan.