Dear Mr Cornwell, I’m 17 and am currently in the middle of AS levels (hoping my maths paper will miraculously ask me a question on the American Civil war). Anyway I just wanted to ask at what age did you become interested in writing your own novels, and was it a long, drawn out frustrating period of your life when you started, or did you find it actually came quite naturally when pen reached paper? I only ask because I often wonder what it would be like to start a novel, and what the ordeal would entail. thanks, Sam (ps I’m enjoying the Starbuck chronicles, I think the characters are great, with particular admiration for Medlicott and Moxey). Sam Brentnall