... Nine-year-old Boys Usually Turn Ten At

War Today Is Such A More Visible Thing. We See It On Television, On Cnn. In 1914, War Was A Concept. There Was A Naivety And Stupidity That War Would Be A Great Lark. It's Not That Different From Gone With The Wind, Where All The Young Men Can't Wait To Go Off To Fight And Then Two Hours Later In The Movie, We See How The Reality Of That Has Come Home To Them.

I Don't Buy Into The Idea That An Irish Writer Should Write About Ireland, Or A Gay Writer Should Write About Being Gay. But When I Found The Right Story, I Saw It As An Opportunity To Write About Being A Teenager And Being Gay. Most People, Whether You're Gay Or Straight Or Whatever, Have Experienced That Relationship Where One Person Is Much More Interested Than The Other.

I Enjoy The Research Element. There Are So Many Stories From The Past That Interest Me, That I Want To Learn More About, Just As An Interested Person. And If I'm Going To Learn, If I'm Going To Research, It's Probably Going To Lead Me To Writing A Novel.

I Was A Very Quiet Child, Quite Introverted, Really. Independent, Yes; I Didn't Need A Lot Of Supervision. Less So Than I Did When I Got Older, Maybe. But I Was A Bookish Child, Not Surprisingly. I Could Sit Quite Happily In A Corner For Hours And Entertain Myself With Books.

I Don't Change The Language For Children Books. I Don't Make The Language Simpler. I Use Words That They Might Have To Look Up In The Dictionary. The Books Are Shorter, But There's Just Not That Much Difference Other Than That To Be Honest. And The Funny Thing Is, I Have Adult Writer Friends [to Whom I Would Say], "would You Think Of Writing A Children's Book?" And They Go, "no, God, I Wouldn't Know How." They're Quite Intimidated By The Concept Of It. And When I Say To Children's Books Writers, Would They Write An Adult Book, They Say No Because They Think They're Too Good For It.