While I have felt lonely many times in my life the oddest feeling of all was after my mother Lucille died. My father had already died but I always had some attachment to our big family while she was alive. It seems strange to say now that I felt so lonely yet I did.
Light and funny has a more compelling quality when you're younger. But I haven't abandoned the genre: I love falling down I love Lucille Ball. It's just that a lot of those stories revolve around problems that I can't convincingly portray at this age.
I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.