Everything. They are partners in the enterprise. Without a reader a novel, a story, a tale, a poem, are just words waiting. It takes a reader to breathe life into them, give them meaning and direction.

Several things. I have various works at various stages of completion. I work on first second and third drafts of different projects at the same time.

A couple of the current ones are out and out silly funny works, while one is a more serious novel that lies somewhere between a ghost story, a science fiction story and a fantasy.

Far too many to mention, really.

But I suppose Stephen King, because as Sean Platt said, 'he doesn't write horror, he writes people.' And he does it so well lots of people always want to buy his books.

Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, P.G. Wodehouse for their humour.

I like mornings and think they are the best part of the day.

Reading, walking, laughing, eating.

Mainly through personal recommendation from friends and GoodReads, which is usually the same thing.

No. Well, there have been several, things written as a child and so on.

(Although, if you Google my name and 'Dolly the Sheep', you will find one of my early ones in various places on the web.)

First thing in the morning, every morning, I write a set number of words on a blank page (currently I have a target of at least 400 and I'm going to increase that to 500 soon), with no aim in mind but to get that number of words done as soon as I can. This is why and how I come up with so much surreal and silly pieces.

Later some of these get extended to various degrees if there is a bigger story there.
Then into 9 sentence outlines and then in a 60 point outline, then those points are expanded to about 150 words each. Then the first draft is written (word target of 2000 words a day).
That is left for a month, then the long slow second draft turns that into a novel, short story or whatever, then a month after the second draft, the final third draft polish and sharpen.
Then it is done.

Not really. I feel as though I've been reading all my life. And that is a long time.

Maybe Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is the one that first really sparked my imagination.

I don't like the concept of genre so I read most of them indiscriminately. I'm not keen on romance or erotica, but more or less everything else.

I love non-fiction: history, science, current affairs, politics.

Anything that makes me want to read it really.

Kindle.

I like the e-ink technology. It makes it easy to read for long periods without eye strain.

Nowadays I prefer e-reading to paper books, something that I would not have believed possible even a few years ago.