In the course of my work in child protection and mental health I had come across a number of cases that affected me profoundly. One case in particular stood out. When I stopped working, my thoughts kept returning to the young girl who had died under tragic circumstances. I wanted to weave aspects of her story into a work of fiction, to honour her memory in a small way, and to highlight some of the systemic failings in both child protection (such as the impossibly high caseloads) and mental health. All of this without The Best of Intentions ever sliding into preachiness, because I realise nobody wants to read a manifesto. So it was a matter of grafting my message onto a gripping narrative, supported by characters who were hopefully memorable in their own right.

With my family mainly. I also try to go for a walk every morning. I find the sounds and smells of the Australian bush soothing and inspiring. As writing can be a solitary business, I also attend some classes in our local community. At present I'm doing Hatha Yoga and watercolours. Since 2016 I have also worked as a volunteer, initially teaching English to refugees and migrants, and more recently with a climate action group.

I grew up in Belgium in the 1950s and 60s. As an only child with few friendships in primary school, I guess I compensated for the lack of actual contact by engaging with fictional characters. I read voraciously and rather indiscriminately: comic strips, stories about pirates and cowboys; and even, at age eleven, a Graham Greene novel that went totally over my head... I sensed at an early age that language was a versatile and powerful tool, suited to both introspection and world-building. I started writing poetry when I was nine years old.

I must have been nine or ten when I wrote a short story about the heroic adventures of Cowboy Jim in a school exercise book. In leaky blue biro (ugh). It was probably inspired by reading Karl May's series of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand novels set in the Wild West. I had never been in America but, as I later found out, neither had Karl May...

My dad taught me how to read using the comic strips in the newspaper. They were fantasy stories about knights and wizards, published in daily instalments. But what stands out was one of the first novels I read, a few years later: Sjoerd Leiker's 'Spionnen in het Rijk van Attila' (Spies in Attila's Empire). It tells the story of a Gaul enlisted in the Roman army. His aim in life is to farm his own plot of land, but his platoon is pulled further and further eastwards, until they encounter Attila's bloodthirsty hordes. The build-up of tension was almost unbearable – I had discovered my first page-turner.

It is fantastic that we now have the technology that enables us to self-publish. I wanted to make use of that opportunity rather than entrust a traditional publisher with my creation. Going down the self-publishing path means that you forego some professional services such as editing, marketing and distribution. As an unknown author you’ll also be struggling to get noticed in an over-saturated market. On the positive side, you retain total control over your creation. You can contract in services such as editing and cover design. There is great software, such as Vellum, that allows you to create a professional book file. Aggregators, distributors and print-on-demand services are easy to use. In addition, you get to set the price, keep a larger percentage of your book’s earnings and your book has a much longer lifespan online.

Plotter, definitely. I spent a couple of years developing the plot and the characters' backstories for 'The Best of Intentions' in Scrivener, my favourite writing app. After that I wrote the first draft in about ten months (before taking another three years to refine it). I write quite slowly, and a three-hour burst will yield maybe 1,000 words. It's an intensely enjoyable process, though, creating and fine-tuning this imaginary world. I just love it. It almost makes up for the months of editing that follow... I write almost exclusively on my Mac and iPad, but when I get stuck I'll switch to a pencil or fountain pen and make crazy diagrams in a large notebook.

These days I read almost exclusively on my iPad. I love its portability and the fact that I no longer have to agonise about which books to take on a trip. And, in true geek fashion, I now occasionally catch myself pressing on a word in a paperback when I want to look up its meaning.

The joy of creation. As a writer you invent a fictional environment that your readers experience as real, or at least convincing. There is an immense leap from the white paper, or the blank screen, to that first draft, and then a seemingly endless journey to the final draft. And at every stage you explore meaning, allusion, subtext, connotation, rhythm, register. You try to evoke colour, texture and tension. When I write I feel focused, in the zone, grateful that I can tinker with this subtle, complex instrument called language.

I am developing the plot for my second novel. It will be a character study set in Tasmania in the 1970s. It may be interwoven with a story from the 19th century... Unless everything changes.