My favourite authors are Ian McEwan and Hanif Kureishi, although I love the Victorian novel. In my own writing, I stick to what I know and want to portray what is on the remarkable side of real. Nothing in my novel is beyond what anyone can experience which is why it can be irksome. It is very much influenced by my upbringing in a close-knit urban community. The only difference is that I've transferred it to a rural setting. I was brought up in a suburb where everybody knew each other and informed everybody of everyone's business. The main character in my novel is presented as the odd-ball I was made to feel when I was growing up. Just by being himself and doing his own thing, people became suspicious of his antics. Like me, his mother always talks about the bad him as if she's pre-empting any criticism she might get of him from the local community. When I told my mother I was writing a novel, she scornfully said, 'What, is it Fifty Shades of Grey?' If anything, it is the opposite.