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Virginia Woolf famously said that a woman needs money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. I would agree that these assets are highly desirable but I do not believe them to be essential. J.K Rowling is, of course, a case in point.

At present I am busy promoting my new book, Keeper of Light and Dust, and one of the questions I was recently asked in an online interview, was what kind of environment is necessary for the creative impulse to flourish. It turned out that what the interviewer really wanted to know, was what my office looks like.

On a good day my office looks whimsical (I hope), on a bad day it looks like the playground of someone who needs serious help: stacks of paper and printouts, photographs, boxing paraphernalia, sagging pin boards with too many newspaper and magazine clippings, objets d'art made by my godchildren, CDs, many, many little bottles of hand sanitizers (neurotic, don't tell me, I know) and books, books, books. Of course, I am sure there are writers who have offices where all is serenity and order and whose creative impulse takes flight in the face of chaos. Still, I am relieved to know that most of my friends who are writers, also work in an environment of cheerful anarchy.

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I recently did a reading at a library where I was promoting my new book, Keeper of Light and Dust.  When it came to question time, someone in the audience asked me what makes writers "tick".   I ended up giving a convoluted and rather pompous explanation about creative energy and how it is a writer's "second heartbeat" and "cannot be denied".

It was really too bad of me, because last year I had attended a wonderful lecture on the topic of creative energy hosted by PEN and The British Medical Research Council and I should have been able to give a more inspired answer.

The panelists at this lecture consisted of eminent scientists and writers - among them Ian McEwan, author of Atonement.  Mr. McEwan asserted that creativity is an ongoing process - not a fleeting spark - and that in order to create, creativity has "to become a habit"  for writers and scientists alike.  He also listed persistence, tolerance of drudgery, luck, playfulness, ambition and ruthlessness as characteristics shared by both groups.  I concur, although my brother --who is a trained physicist--, has a different idea of playfulness than my own. (For those of you, who have seen WALL-E, think of the scene where Eve dances inside WALL-E's home.)

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I am often asked who gets to read my finished manuscripts first.   My mother and my husband are first in line.  My mother is a tough lady and does not hesitate to point out the weaknesses in my prose.  My husband, on the other hand, is invariably complimentary.  He values a quiet life and is a clever man.

I also receive feedback from my brother.  Deep breath here.   My brother is my mother's clever child (Ph.D in Physics) and my mother swears his first word as a baby was "quark".  Mathematically gifted, he despairs of his sister's "fuzzy thinking." Even though he is seven years younger than I am, he has succeeded in intimidating me since the crib.  

In my new thriller, Keeper of Light and Dust, I dip a toe into the realm of quantum physics - courageously I thought - but my brother used a different word.   When he gave me his feedback, I took his comments on the chin and rewrote those passages, which caused him such distress.  I won't say he was one hundred percent happy with the finished product but at least he stopped talking to me through clenched teeth.   For some reason he took it personally that I had criticized Einstein.

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Natasha Mostert is our guest blogger during the week of April 13th. If you have any questions for Natasha Mostert, add a comment to any of her posts.

Here is more information about Keeper of Light and Dust:

A highly original supernatural thriller blending magic, science, martial arts, and the greatest desire of all: to live forever

Mia Lockheart has a secret. Her mother was a Keeper, as was her grandmother-women who were warriors, healers, and protectors. As Mia practices her craft among the boxers and martial artists of South London, and begins a romance with her childhood friend, the fighter Nick Duffy, she has no idea that a man who calls himself "Dragonfly" is watching from the shadows.

Adrian Ashton is a brilliant scientist, an expert in the breaking field of biophoton emissions from cells within the human body. He is also a skilled martial artist-and a modern-day vampire. With the aid of the enigmatic Book of Life and Death, written in the thirteenth century by the legendary Chinese physician Zhang Sanfeng, he preys on other martial artists and drains them of their chi-the vital energy that flows through the body.