I like to read a good book as many do, but I also like to watch a good film. However, a well-written and entertaining narrative does not necessarily translate into a good film.

It's always exciting when a new movie comes along, one which has begun its life in literary form. Standing in the box office queue, you wonder what the filmmakers have done to it, and will there be parts which veer considerably from the book? Will they present the characters in the same way you visualise them in your head? Or - crisis - will they butcher the whole thing and change the ending?


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Hello. My name is Sarah, and I am an addict – a writaholic.

They say there’s a genetic predisposition, but it wasn’t always like this. For twenty years I held down a ‘real’ job, was successful – was solvent – until the awful obsession kicked in. I can’t even blame the excesses of youth. At my age, I should have known better. But then, it was only a matter of time; a staving off of the inevitable.

I guess it began in a casual way, a little dabbling at the weekends. I really got off on inhaling the smell of a pristine, A5 lined notebook. But, writing in longhand – well, it’s so slow. I quickly found myself losing the thread. And the indecision, the procrastination – the hours spent choosing a character’s name!

I’ll never forget my first. Mr Dent, or was it Denton? Whatever – he combed his glossy dark hair, stepped out of his door in Belgravia – and then disappeared in a puff of smoke, because that story never progressed. But I did read, a few years ago, that Dent, or Denton, is the most common name plucked out of the ether by ‘aspiring writers’, and just how weird is that! Maybe it proves my grand theory regarding this addiction of writing – that there’s some ‘greater power’ sending out little poisoned pens to zoom in on any susceptible minds – a sort of literary Cupid, minor god of purple prose and hearts. And, if we get injected or ‘dented’, then we might as well face it, we’re hooked for life. No matter how strong the resolve to resist, the hunger keeps nagging and gnawing away; just a matter of fixing on the right prescription – which, in my case, was something with more oomph and speed. I went out and scored a computer.



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In February I attended a local writers' festival called Writers At The Convent. I generally avoid anything that has the possibility of involving nuns (with all due respect to the hundreds of nuns I'm sure read this blog - I am of course genuflecting as I type), but this was well worth the risk.

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When it’s taken in two years time, the 2011 Census will be the fifth in which I have a mention. It will also be the third one that I can actively remember and the second in which – if nothing changes between now and then – I’ll be listed as ‘head of household’. Scary thoughts.


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What a difference the weather makes. I'm feeling positively giddy. The sun is shining, the sky is powder-blue, the birds are tweeting (with the exception of a blackbird that flew into our window with a thud and is sitting blinking a lot and looking indignant on the lawn). I survived a two day work stint in London. Unforeseen side-effect of sending me on a training course about micro-filtration in aviation jet fuel? I write poetry. Yikes.

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I mentioned a little while ago that I’d just finished reading what could end up being my book of the year. It was the incredibly good, Black Boxes, a book that one of my favourite writers, Sarah Salway, described as ‘Heartbreaking... and very, very good’. Sarah Salway is not wrong.



So I’m delighted to be able to welcome Black Boxes’ author, the truly lovely Caroline Smailes to my blog, to chat a little.



So, Caroline, Black Boxes, who’s it for and what’s it about?

Who’s it for? I guess anyone who likes to read modern fiction, who is open minded, non-judgemental, flexible, who understands loss, who has ever felt like they don’t belong, who has suffered from bullying or postnatal depression, and anyone who has regrets.

What’s it about? Black Boxes tells the story of Ana Lewis, a 37 year old single mum who is struggling with depression. Right at the beginning of the novel, the reader learns that Ana has taken an overdose of pills and that she is dying. Black Boxes is the story of Ana, and of the children she neglects, of Pip and of Davie. My description makes it all sound a bit too depressing, but I do believe that there is a happily ever after within the story (in an unconventional way, of course).

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Has anyone asked about your writing recently in the voice we use for people with illnesses which aren't going to get better? 'How's it going?' they say, consciously radiating willingness to receive a terse 'Fine, thanks,' or a half-hour outburst of gruesome symptoms and existential fears. When you first declared, or mumbled, that you wanted to be a writer, did you get an anxious spiel about how agonising rejections are before you get a deal, and even worse four books down the line when even your agent will drop you? And how lonely it is! And what about the terror of the blank page and the horror of writer's block, (let alone when you've got the rent to pay)? Did they even go so far as to wonder aloud why so many writers have drunk or drugged or committed other forms of behavioural suicide? As a foreign interviewer once asked a middle-aged poet friend of some standing, 'You had success as a poet very young; why have you not yet killed yourself?'

Why is it that we regard creative work as so potentially dangerous to mental health?

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If you’ve ever had to wait for an important verdict on a writing project, you’ll know how horrible it can be.
I think of it literally as a large waiting room. The walls are painted the colour of despair and there’s much nervous coughing and magazine shuffling. Writerly types are sitting around and pretending to ignore each other, but really everyone is quietly sizing each other up. Every now and then the double doors open and someone important-looking with a clipboard sticks their head out. My turn at last! But no, another name gets called and someone leaves the waiting area, punching the air or weeping, depending on their outcome.
I’ve somehow got myself into a situation where I’m waiting for external verdicts on two separate books from two sources. What I was thinking?

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After our exposure to the cheap vices of Georgian times we blinked when the barman charged £7.50 for a pint of Grolsch and a pint of Guinness. It made me almost nostalgic for the good old days of 'poor man's punch'.


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I am planning to serialise my first Porfiry Petrovich novel on the social networking site twitter, starting tomorrow.

I'm not the first writer to use twitter to publish fiction. I've been very much enjoying Sarah Fox's unfolding story, Circus. Someone, I assume it's the author Laurie R. King, is tweeting quotes from the Mary Russell books, The Beekeeper's Apprentice and The Language of Bees.

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