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" Novelists seem to fall into two distinct categories - those that plan and those that just see where it takes them. I am very much the former category. "

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" Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story. "

" The fragrance I always wear is Coco by Chanel. I've worn it for 20 years. It suits me, it's classic, and I like the simplicity of only ever wearing one fragrance. "

" My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day. "

" We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going. "

" Chick-lit may be staggering on its heels, but women's fiction is alive and kicking. "

" My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!' "

" We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds. "

" A stylish person, for me, is one who draws your eye without necessarily being showy; they wear clothes that are beautifully cut, flatter the wearer, and show that they are not impervious to fashion, but not a slave to it either. "

" Marriage is a decades-long experiment, conducted mostly in private; a test of will in the face of unexpected obstacles. "

" For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life. "

" I have read books that are so cliched and lazy, my eyes have bled. But I also have read books marketed under the chick-lit umbrella that are so honest, clever and gritty that I've wanted to give up writing and paint walls instead. "

" If the characters are compelling, readers will follow anywhere. "

" What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air - you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming - a physical pain. "

" I write in all sorts of places; it's a legacy of my time as a journalist, where I could turn out copy in a hotel corridor. But I have a little office that I rent in my local town, and that's my ideal place. "

" If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I'd suggest it's because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick. "

" My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem. "

" I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end. "

" Rejection is part of the process, so you can't let it crush you. My first three novels never made it into publication, but my fourth, 'Sheltering Rain,' was translated into 11 languages. "

" If I don't cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it's failed. "

" I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything - so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter. "

" Unless you sell millions, I think it's very hard as a writer not to feel anxious about what you put out. I always feel I could do better. "

" I try to read writers who are better than me because it inspires me to be better. "

" I've always been a focused person who knows how to get what I want. "

" I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person's family or life story. "

" Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward. "

" My characters make incomprehensible decisions until you stand in their shoes. Then it makes more sense. Life is very rarely black and white, and most people are trying to do their best. I try not to judge. "

" In 'Me Before You,' the two characters popped into my head fully formed, which is really strange and unusual. Other books, I sit on them for two or three months. I have a whole routine: I buy a nice book; I hand-write all their characteristics. I put them through little tests just to see how they would react to things. "

" Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it. "

" I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better. "

" Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. "