Dogs. I always smile at them in the street, and they like it. Try it.

When people say, "I'm just being me, I'm just being real!" and then think that makes it OK for them to be mean, selfish and rude. Oh, and chain letters/emails. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Argghhhhhhh!

Bootleg jeans, scruffy shirt, Converse trainers (flip-flops when it's hot!).

Gregory's Girl. Set in a school in Scotland, it's the funniest, sweetest romance going. The scene at the end where they're "dancing" always makes me go all fuzzy inside.

"Be nice, you're only here a wee while."

Well, I tend to get my little girl all ready for school, then realise – in the playground – that I a) have very bad hair, b) have not put any mascara on and therefore look like a startled meercat, and c) am still wearing my (thankfully black) pyjama bottoms. So I guess that means I spend possibly minus-twenty minutes getting ready (oops…).

Virgo. We're hard working and like things to be controlled and ordered, apparently. That's very true of me, but doesn't take into account the fact that I also like clutter and often have fluff for brains.

Neither. Bags and shoes are booorrrrring. Who cares? Tops are cool. And hair clips. Tops and hair clips rule!!

Crisps, since you're asking.

Funny, shy and worried. I had a huge obsession with art and listening to music, and spent every free second scouring charity shops and retro/antique shops for excellent, original clothes, plus weird bits and bobs for my room. Out of school, my look was hippy-meets-Victoriana, with dips into Fifties, Sixties and Seventies style clothes, depending what I'd found in the charity shops! At school, I accessorised my dull uniform with antique shoes and black fingerless gloves (woolly in winter, lacy in summer).

I write pretty fast, which is something you learn to do on weekly magazines in particular. Also, it's meant that a large part of my brain is still set to "teenager". I like that bit a lot.

Finding out a couple of years ago that my books had sold more than a million copies. Wow. That and holding foreign edition copies of my books in my hand, and getting a head rush from thinking that girls in places like Japan and Russia and Indonesia are reading about Ally, Stella, Lemmie and all my other heroines!

Ooooh, there are bits of me in all of them. But a friend pointed out to me that I am every member of Ally's family in Ally's world: funny worrier Ally is my thirteen-year-old self; big sister Linn is the Virgo control freak version of me; middle sister Rowan is my mildly eccentric, fluff-brained side, and little brother Tor represents my total animal obsession.

There are more pages in the teenage books! But all I do when I'm switching into my younger mode is use simpler language and shorter sentences. I still like to have the same quirky feel