An epic conclusion to my Homeric odyssey Nah, I thought. It's a play. It doesn't count. The next weeks were a constant intellectual ecstasy: casting Achilles, discussing Hector's motivations, costuming Agamemnon. I loved the way Shakespeare's text inspired new interpretations of well-known characters. I had enjoyed the scurrilous Thersites in the Iliad, but never truly appreciated him until Shakespeare gave him such vivid, scene-stealing life. And, though they aren't the focus of the drama, seeing Achilles and Patroclus together on stage made their bond feel more immediate than ever. When the play ended, I found myself craving the same kind of creative intensity. Without even realising what I was doing, I opened my laptop and began to write. An hour later, when I looked down at the screen, I realised: "Good God, I'm writing a novel about Achilles." I slammed the computer shut. The next day, I re-read what I had written. I made a few edits, then found myself adding more. Two pages became five, then 20. I couldn't stay away. I wrote, crouched over the laptop, as if at any moment someone might burst in. They'd say. Caught adapting! When I finished the first chapter, I made the mistake of telling my classicist boyfriend. He accused me of writing "Homeric fan fiction." "Do you really think that you could ever be as good as Homer?" he asked. I twisted my hands, guiltily. Of course I didn't. But maybe the piece could still be good, just on its own? He snorted, dubiously. And his words, of course, echoed my own fears. But Patroclus's story - for that's what the novel was - had its teeth in me and wouldn't let go. Graduate school began, but whenever I tried to work on my thesis, I would end up writing a scene. I would begin an article for a scholarly journal and find myself picturing the sea-nymph Thetis. I read obsessively - all the scholarship I could find about Homer, about Virgil and Achilles. And every bit of it kept turning into fiction. At last, I was forced to admit it to myself: I was really doing this. Writing a novel that retold the Iliad. In spite of my doubts, the voice of the story - Patroclus's voice - simply would not be silenced. So, for the next 10 years, amid graduate school and teaching, I worked to finish my secret novel. It seemed like poetic justice that in the time it took the Greeks to capture Troy, or Odysseus to return home, I managed 368 pages. The best part of my change of heart has been discovering others" adaptations. In the past years, I have read some truly stunning ones, including Zachary Mason's The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad and David Malouf's Ransom. Not one of these authors seeks to supplant Homer, but to engage and illuminate him. They do what adaptation does at its very best: stand brilliantly on its own, while inspiring a fresh look at the original. And there is absolutely nothing lazy about any of it - all those works show how the authors steeped themselves in the source material, and how thoughtfully they approached it. Besides, if I had been thinking straight from the beginning, I would have realised that some of my favourite ancient authors are themselves adapters - Virgil's Aeneid is based on the Iliad and Odyssey, and Ovid's Metamorphoses draws on everyone from Homer to Virgil himself. In Greek mythology, heroes often blame giant errors of judgment on a god, their version of "the Devil made me do it." So, I can only submit that my addled teenage hostility towards adaptation must have been the work of some Fury. But, thankfully, that Fury's power has long since expired. Nowadays, I can proudly say that sitting down to experience a gifted author recast and rethink a text I love is one of my greatest personal literary pleasures. Madeline Miller's first novel, 'The Song of Achilles," this week won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. She will be appearing at the Telegraph Hay Festival on Saturday June 9