You can’t help parts of yourself leaking into other characters.

We all overlay our feelings with too much thinking. We are afraid of our feelings because they are arbitrary and volatile, and we often need literature to make our feelings intelligible to us, to make us see that our reaction to what we can’t choose and what we can is what shapes our lives.

Was it worth saying that she was no longer going to do anything for anyone since it seemed to her that the more generous she was, the more she herself seemed to get punished?

I’m actually rather orderly, although the way that I write is not.

She trusted her instincts; she trusted those dear to her; she trusted her emotions and her passions. She drank deep, you could see that; she squeezed every drop of living out of all the elements that mattered to her. It made her careless sometimes, of course it did, but it was a wonderfully rich and rapt way to be.

William got up and went over to the window. Outside, the autumn fields lay pleasingly striped with stubble and speckled with partridges.

Or was she going to be sensible, reliable, patient Elinor who never put her own feelings first because – let’s face it – she didn’t have any worth considering in the first place, did she?

I’ve experienced huge kindness here, a great welcome and some very generous reviews without the snide social edge I often suffer from at home. I’m not patronized here either, which I much appreciate!

My advice would be not to write until after 35. You need some experience, and for life to knock you about a bit. Growing up is so hard you probably won’t have much emotion to spare anyway.

I am not a fan of the cupcake image. This idea that you can distract a girl with something frivolous like a cake or shoes or handbags, and she won’t be a threat to men.