I love Kate Atkinson. To me her neovls are what neovls should be, a bit like life – a sort of patchwork of interconnecting people. I’ve often wondered how she does her plots. I came to the conclusion she must start at the end and work backwards. (NB this is a great way to solve mazes!)I’m consciously trying to emulate Kate’s approach in a novel I’m currently writing. But I have just had a non fiction book published (a biography of Lewis Carroll) and so for the past year or so my time has been entirely taken up with that. I often think of my poor novel characters shut in the drawer with nobody taking any notice of them 🙂 cannot wait to get back to them and when I do I will have a Kate Atkinson handy to keep everything on the right track.