People think your success is just a matter of having a pretty face. But it's easy to be chewed up and spat out. You've got to stay ahead of the game to be able to stay in it.
I learned early to drink beer, wine and whiskey. And I think I was about 5 when I first chewed tobacco.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Twenty years on, the books are still fun to write and I've still got lots of stories I want to tell, mainly about social injustice and people chewed up by the system.
'The X Factor' is great entertainment, but it doesn't prepare people for getting chewed up and spat out by the music industry.