1. You contributed a short story to the groundbreaking collection: All
Hail The New Puritans. Do you still stand by the manifesto in favour of plain,
authentic, transparent and testimonial prose expressed in that book?

That manifesto was a bit odd, in that it only applied to that collection. I
guess you could say that the New Puritans are part-timers when it comes to
manifestos... We did the collection almost as an experiment, to see what
would happen if those particular writers were given those particular rules.
I stand by the manifesto to some extent. I agree that 'flowery',
over-written prose can be very annoying. However, I do think that prose
writers should be experimental, and craft poetry at times - although I think
the best poetry is formed from the simplest language. Having said all that,
I have seen the most bizarre styles really work, and the simplest somehow go
wrong. It's the skill of the writer that determines whether a piece of
writing works, not rules.

2. What originally motivated you to take up writing and to become a
novelist? Was it a consicious decision?

It was a conscious decision, although I didn't know whether I'd be
successful or not. When I was 24, I limited my employement options severely
by leaving London and going to live in a field full of sheep. It was very
much a you'd-better-write-a-book-then situation.

4. You've published two novels in the past two years - would you consider
yourself a prolific writer?

My last book, Bright Young Things, was first published just over 18 months
ago. The next one won't appear for another two years. I don't know if you'd
call that prolific or not.

5. On your website you renounce Chicklit as an elitist conspiracy. Why?

I was recently commissioned to investigate chick lit for a feature for the
Independent on Sunday. The resulting piece ran on the cover of Life Etc on
Sunday 4th August. I've just put the full piece up on my website, so anyone
can see the argument there. Basically, it's an economic thing - chick lit is
cheap to produce, the market gets flooded with it - oh, and the writers get
treated like shit. It's just like an assembly line, in some cases, with the
commercial publishers very much in control. I wanted to investigate this,
and write something about it, because the chick lit writers themselves can't
really say anything for fear of being dropped by their publishers. I also
wanted to try to encourage people to read more interesting women's fiction.
Novels like Sister Crazy by Emma Richler, and Lili by Annie Wang are easy to
read but ten million times better than all that over-commercialised rubbish.

6. Can you tell us why you dislike TV with so much passion?

I used to be obsessed with TV. I loved cutting-edge dramas and intelligent
documentaries and surreal, semi-absurd sitcoms. But now everything on TV
seems so formulaic. Factual TV is the worst. I quite liked that makeover
show, Would Like To Meet, when it was first on - but how many weeks can you
sit through the same 'story'? The format is so repetitive it actually makes
me feel ill. Every week they say and do the same things, and the only
difference is the person being made-over. This applies to all makeover
shows. And dramas these days are just very badly written, full of
stereotyical characters, awful dialogue and plots so covered with signposts
they may as well be motorway roundabouts. Also, I've realised that TV makes
you depressed. I read about a study that suggested that people who watch a
lot of TV are actually having their brains fooled into thinking they have a
social life when they really don't. So now I'm trying to make up for lost
time and attempting to fill my life with real things instead. On one level,
both Bright Young Things and Going Out are about young people trying to
escape from a world full of junky pop culture.

7. You were sent to boarding school by your father at the age of 12. How
has that experience shaped your writing?

I was sent to boarding school by my father at the age of 14, in fact. I was
only there for 18 months but I got lots of things out of the experience: in
particular, a fear of being confined and a problem with authority. There
were positive things too: I'm able to get on with lots of different people,
I'm quite self-sufficient, and I've pretty much seen it all in terms of
teenage girls' interactions!

8. Your new novel is Going Out. Tell us a bit about the two central
characters?

Luke is allergic to the sun. As a result, he has pretty much lived in his
bedroom for 25 years. Everything he knows about life he learnt from the TV,
the Internet and American films. He wants to go out but knows it will kill
him. Julie is his next-door neighbour and best friend. She is happy working
as a waitress, living with her dad (her mum left several years ago) and
thinking about maths and quantum physics in secret. She is terrified of the
world. Luke wants to go out and experience everything but Julie would feel
better if she could stay in one room, protected from all the dangers of
life.

9. How much is this book a 'road trip' novel and have you ever been on a
road trip?

The 'road trip' section in the book happens when a healer contacts Luke and
says he can heal him if he makes the journey to Wales. Then Luke and his
friends have to work out how to do this... In the end, it involves a lot of
tin foil, a space-suit and a VW Camper Van. It's not an easy trip, of
course - Julie is scared of roads, which doesn't help; and since the book is
sent in October 2000, most of the country is flooded. As with all road trip
narratives, the journey is really about self-discovery (and some other stuff
that becomes clear at the end of the book but which I won't give away here).
Having said that, the 'road trip' isn't the whole book. Most of it is sent
in this pre-apocalyptic retail-park landscape in Essex.

I have been on several road trips. The last one resulted in me living in the
field full of sheep. (I do live somewhere more sensible now, though.)

10 What next for Scarlett Thomas?

The inevitable 'big book', of course.