'Is this the one that's a disaster?'

'I worry so much about everything I write, I always think: "Is this the one that's a disaster?" Fortunately I've written enough, and didn't get successful with my first book so I've had experience with not selling very many copies.　 I worry every single time, it's an awful experience, but hopefully it makes my writing better... I think you always have to have that doubt. I always say that publishing a book is such a privilege. I feel, perhaps, wrongly, that every time could be the last time, which in itself is a liberation, because then I think: "Well, if no one is going to read it, then I'll do what I want."

Hopefully my joy of writing is in the book so people then read it. I've tried in the past to write for other people and it's been a failure. It might sound disingenuous, but for me each time feels like the last.'

Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls and the Chaos Walking trilogy, in the Bookseller