Here are my answers to your most frequently asked questions…

Where do you get your ideas from? 

My stories and characters are a mixture of childhood memories, adult memories and things I come across in everyday life. Things I learn when I am reading a book, listening to the radio, or watching television. Things I see when I am staring out of the window, or perhaps overhear when I am standing in the supermarket. Little things I notice when I visit someone’s house: the way they decorate, the way they arrange their belongings. Things people tell me, funny things, strange things, touching things, and of course things which are totally imagined, things that just float through my mind. Some stories and characters are consciously constructed from all these bits and pieces, others I have no idea where they came from or indeed why. 

Were you good at writing as a child? 

Not particularly. There is nothing very remarkable about the diaries I kept and the notebooks I scribbled in. What I notice when I read them now is the detail; I can see what is important to my seven or ten year old self. There were things I was most definitely interested in, things I wanted to make a note of even if the way I have put them down is rather dreary. I was probably a little constrained by the need to conform – to write stories in the way I thought one should write them. It’s a shame really because if only I’d had the confidence then to write down what had actually gone on in my head, the stories would have had a lot more personality. 

Were you good at drawing as a child? 

Yes, I was reasonably good at this – not child prodigy good but good enough. It was one of the few things I felt truly confident about. I drew a lot and I never felt self-conscious about people seeing what I had drawn... except for one time when I drew a flick-book of a man taking his clothes off. 

How do you get inside the head of a child? 

Writing in any voice, whether adult or child, involves listening and noticing, not unlike being an actor I guess. For me, writing is mainly about being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine how they might feel. When writing from a child’s perspective, the key is to remember how it felt to be a child.

Do you test your books on children to see if they enjoy them?

No, I write for myself; the most important thing is that I feel passionate about what I am writing or illustrating, if I don’t then I can’t expect anyone else to. It is not possible to please all people or to appeal to every child, so I work on books which please me and hope they will appeal to enough other people too. That said, I do have a few friends who read what I have written as I’m going along and make comments and give advice, which sometimes helps me to identify problems or make improvements. 

Do you prefer to write or illustrate?

My answer to this is usually, whichever I am not doing at the time. The truth is I find both very difficult, sometimes nearly impossible, often frustrating, always challenging and mostly enjoyable.  Writing is somehow more direct – I find it easier to say what I want to say and I enjoy the thinking time, puzzling things out, getting several ideas to work together. Though I do have bad days, days when I might only manage to write one single sentence and very often even that gets erased. Illustrating can be every bit as frustrating as writing – I often find it hard get the image I have in my mind, out and on to paper. Physically it’s hard work; I spend a lot of time standing, cutting, placing, painting, drawing, and usually by the end of the day I feel exhausted. It’s also time consuming, but when it is going well it is extremely satisfying and takes me away from the everyday. Illustration is a world I can get lost in. 

Would you like to write for adults?

Very much, it’s just a matter of finding the time and the courage. Attempting anything new is daunting and I have no idea if I will be able to do it. It’s not that I think it will be harder than writing for children – nor for that matter do I think it will be easier – its just a different thing – something I haven’t tried. But hopefully I will one day. I do still love writing and illustrating for children and have no plans to give this up.

Which is your favourite of your books? 

Usually it is the book most recently finished. I find there is a small window of time when I can feel really proud of the latest book, when I can see nothing wrong with it, when I can think to myself, I’ve done my best work. This doesn’t last long... soon I begin to dwell on all its imperfections and wish I had done things differently. This is probably a good thing, it means I am always keen to get on with something new, always looking to do something better. If I absolutely had to choose, then for sentimental reasons I would say, Clarice Bean, That’s Me (it was my first book), and Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent because I still feel pleased with it. 

Who is your favourite character? 

Clarice Bean will probably always be my favourite character, partly because she was the first, but also because she has the most to say and the most interesting way of saying it. I suppose she is the one who is most like an actual in fact person (as she might say) and she gets to talk about things in the way I wish I could talk about things. Amongst the others, I have a particular soft spot for Hubert, who I think will have much more to say in the future. 

How long does it take you to complete a book? 

I am never sure how long it takes me to write a book because I am usually working on several stories or ideas at the same time as lots of other things – some stories sit in my notebooks for years, before I find them an ending. For novels, once I have properly started writing, it will take me about 18 months before the text is finally completed. I live in hope that I will get faster. 

Illustrating a picture book used to take about three months, but I am getting more and more fussy and I want each one to be better than the last, so as a consequence they are taking longer and longer – so more like six months and in some cases more; The Princess and the Pea for example took almost two years. 

Is Clarice Bean you? 

No, or at least it didn’t start off that way – she was very definitely a different person, but now we are beginning to merge... 

Do you want to be as rich as JK Rowling? 

Well, it’s true I can always think of ways to spend money I don’t have (most of us can) but even so I think a more interesting question would be, would you like your books to be as successful as hers, would you like your characters to be as well known and well loved?’ and the answer to that would be, yes. 

Are you a millionaire? 

Regrettably the answer is, no – being on the television doesn’t seem to make you rich, after all. 

Why tomatoes? 

I chose to make tomatoes Lola’s most hated vegetable (or as some people insist, ‘fruit’) because I seem to have met a large number of tomato-haters during my life. People have very strong reactions to them. The other reason is because the word tomato has a very nice sound to it. 

Do you have any pets? 

As a child I had three goldfish, hundreds of stick insects, two hamsters, one tortoise, one rabbit, sixteen guinea pigs, and several woodlice, though not all at the same time. When I was in my twenties I had two cats, later off-loaded onto my parents. I think fondly of all these creatures, but I haven’t yet forgotten all the cleaning out, looking after, trips to the vet, chasing round the garden, and general worry that went with them so no, I do not have any pets. When the time is right I am planning on getting a dog, probably a whippet because I once saw one that looked like a rabbit. 

Are Charlie and Lola based on real children? 

Find out by going to the Charlie and Lola character page. 

Are you American? 

No. Though I should add... I watched so much American television as a child, part of my imaginary world definitely has an American feel to it.

Did you ever have an imaginary friend? 

It never really occurred to me to have one – I imagined a lot of things but never an actual always-there person. 

What’s your favourite colour? 

This is an exceptionally hard question. There are an infinite number of colours, if you start thinking about all the various shades and hues and it all depends on what the colour is for – a dress, a car, a room, a plant. It also depends on one’s mood. Where the colour is also makes a difference. As a rule I like pink when it is next to green or brown or red but loathe it when it is next to purple or lilac, and then there’s the whole question of texture – some colours are lovely when matt or dull and awful when glossy and shiny. 

I do love brown – so many things look good in brown but I have yet to persuade a publisher to let me have a brown picture book cover – though I am working on it. 

Right now I have a particular fondness for orange, I am constantly drawn to orange things (though not clothes – I look terrible in orange). One of my favourite orange items is my orange telephone.
I used a similar one in I am Absolutely Too Small for School. 

However, I am beginning to seek out yellow...