Hanif Kureishi Q&A

At the launch BBC Writersroom's new mentoring scheme, Hanif Kureishi took part in a Q&A.

Sometimes when you begin to write you almost begin to feel an enormous sense of self-disgust and great sense of 'oh my god, how could anyone write this rubbish?' All these voices start to crowd onto you as you begin to write - the hardest thing is to carry on writing with all the other voices chattering at you continuously saying 'you're an idiot, this is rubbish, get a proper job' etc.

You need to be able to hold all that off in order to have a clean space to work out what your thoughts are. The hardest bit of writing is to clear out all those interferences.