I wanted to write a novel. I wanted to create my own fantasy epic. But I was only 15 and had no idea what I was doing, so all my planning consisted of was buying an A5 exercise book. (I was at my parents’ last week and scrounging around in the garage looking for something else entirely, and actually found the exercise book – right.) I’d stay up nights, pumping myself full of cups of tea and cigarettes, scribbling away while one of the midnight music shows of the time, like Rage, played in the background. The exercise book (and its successor) even accompanied me when my parents took me…