I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You've got to go your own way, and that's what I did.

That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

Time is something that interests me a whole lot - past and present, and how the past appears as people change.

Writing is very much an emotional process; it requires you to be very in touch with your feelings. That is the opposite of what you're taught as a medical doctor. We're supposed to be detached and logical. Maybe because I started off as a writer and then became a doctor, I'm able to integrate those two.

What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.

Anxiety is part of creativity, the need to get something out, the need to be rid of something or to get in touch with something within.

If you can allow yourself to do more good with your creativity by being successful, then that's a great thing.