The lovely Rosy Barnes at MockDuck has mentioned that she is looking forward to Kill-Grief. Hooray! Someone on Goodreads added it to their “to read – forthcoming” list too, so perhaps I will sell two copies! Thank you Rosy and person-on-Goodreads.

Rosy was talking about the Spread the Word initiative, which aims to champion good books that haven’t had the publicity to reach a wide readership. I know exactly which one gets my vote in the fiction section – Jim Dodge’s Fup. It’s a surreal and moving story set on a California ranch, where the cantankerous Grandaddy Jake and his gentle giant grandson, Tiny, revive an abandoned duckling with moonshine whiskey. At only 89 pages, it’s more a fairy tale than a novel, but it is crammed with humour, beauty and emotion, and it brought the exclamation “Shitfire!” into my vocabulary.


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Ah, the rot’s set in already, Carruthers. There was frost on the grass (though Lord H insisted it was ash – though where he thought the ash came from is another question entirely …) this morning and the car had its first thin layer of ice on the windows, groan. And I’m wearing my winter coat. Soon it will be time for the winter duvet, you know. Not to mention the hot water bottle and the bedsocks. And that’s only in the day time. As you can tell, here in Godalming we maintain our position at the cutting edge of fashion ...


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I have received a sample of the 'exciting packaging' that Macmillan are sending the proof of CHANGELING in, and it is so bloody cool: the book appears to 'float' in the centre of the transparent balloon-like envelope and the only way to get at it is to pop the entire thing. I knew that my publishers were planning to put something together for the proofs, but I had no idea what - I assumed it might be some envelopes with the title of the book printed on them - I certainly did not expect anything as fantastic as this.


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So I'm doing the Happy Author Dance round the kitchen, because the boxes of my author's copies of A Secret Alchemy have arrived. Twelve hardback and twelve of the big, handsome export trade paperback: I even thanked the courier man. And yes, it does look gorgeous, and yes, I did take it to bed with me yesterday (well, it spent the night on the bedside table, but it was well within patting distance), and yes, when I got up I brought it back downstairs, where it's been glowing quietly on my desk all day.

But why it should be such a thrill, I'm not really sure.


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Ruth has bravely struggled into work today, but is still suffering, poor thing. I’m not sure she’ll make the first night of Pirates of Penzance tonight, or at least not much of it, which is such a shame. We shall go on Thursday and fly the flag whether or not she’s there. Naturally. But I do hope she gets better soon.

Meanwhile I’ve spent the morning continuing to try to beat yesterday’s minutes into submission. The jury’s out on who might win, I have to say. I suspect in the end nobody will be able to tell the victor. Lunchtime saw me at the Writers’ Group meeting. It was the first one where new students might be able to come along too, and we had two or three which was nice. People seemed to enjoy the exercises as well, so that was good, though I don’t think I was quite as on top of it all as I was last month. However I did remember to take my calming pills this morning, and top up the effects with my relaxation spray, so at least I sounded less like a gazelle on speed than usual. One hopes ...


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I've just been drawing up a list of writing prompts I can use with my group. Below, in case anyone is in need of inspiration, or is curious, is the last list of prompts I used. Feel free to use any of them - and if you decide to write something from them, let me know - I'd love to see what you came up with.

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As far as the writing is concerned, I have been going through something of a literary wilderness for a few weeks, only managing a few poems here and there which is not good at all. It isn't that I don't want to write, it is just finding the inclination to sit down and do it after spending all day at the office, that I find difficult. Anyway, I have taken the bull by the horns (or the writing by the quill) and signed up to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of November in an annual writing challenge. There are no main prizes, save a certificate, if you actually do it, but I just need to do something before the writer within dies completely.

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Had a lovely email from a reviewer of Thorn in the Flesh this morning who is halfway through the said work and was sweet enough to email me saying I am obviously “ridiculously talented” and why aren’t I better known? Ah, it’s a mystery, Jay – I think it might be to do with my red hair and Essex accent, both attributes being pretty low down in the authorial gene pool, ho ho. Either that or when I speak to my agent, the poor man has trouble remembering my name. Anyway, your comments have much cheered me on this bleak Monday so thank you for that! And I think that might even become my new strapline: Ridiculously talented, but nobody knows who she is … Hey, it works for me ...


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a couple of kd lang videos = FAB

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I'm back from the Cheltenham Literary Festival, having been taken there by my wife as a birthday treat. It was my first lit fest, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We took in a number of events including: Louise Rennison - tough to stand up on your own and talk for an entire hour, but she did a great job; Mark Walden & Joe Craig in their Heroes vs Villains slot; Marcus Sedgewick & Justin Richards discussing vampires - which I was rather disappointed with, as they seemed to be nothing short of apologetic about writing vampire fiction, and finally, Ben Haggerty, whose chilling adult fairy-tale session was simply tremendous and deserved the rapturous applause it received at the end.


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