“The truth is that with any art form you have to wade through a lot of less good stuff to find the gems, and there is a purpose in the less good stuff because that’s how artists, novelists, film-makers and theatre-makers learn. And for the reader or the audience there is a real pleasure in going on a journey with an author or a theatre-maker and seeing them develop over a period of time. If everything was astonishing it would be very dull.”