Being something of a closet geek (yes, I was the one in your class who actually liked maths), I always rather enjoy it when the newspapers run stories based on maths or statistics.


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I'm reading, and utterly loving, Slaughterhouse 5 at the moment. But here's the thing - it isn't just the words and story I love. It's the typeface, the cover, the feel of the book, its weight, its texture, its size. I felt the same about Willful Creatures, by Aimee Bender (seriously, I stroked that book!) among a few others

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True story :
A friend of a friend goes to a posh dinner party.
‘And what do you do?’ the hostess asks her.
‘I don’t do anything,’ the friend says. ‘I’m just myself.’
‘Well,’ says the hostess, ‘That’s not good enough!’

Apocryphal story:
A dinner party guest asks the writer what he does for a living.
‘I’m a writer,’ he says.
‘Oh really?’ says the guest. ‘I’m going to write a book when I retire.’
‘What do you do?’ asks the writer.
‘Brain surgeon.’
‘Funny, that,’ says the writer. ‘I’m going to take up brain surgery when I retire.’

Such stories put me in mind of all the times when I’ve been asked what I ‘do’ - the added implication being ‘for a living’. Conversations usually run along the following lines:


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It seemed a party was just getting started. In the entance hall, popular music of the forties was playing on a gramophone. Women drifted about in frocks, hats and red lipstick. A Fred Astaire/Judy Garland film was showing on a twenty foot screen.

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There's little nicer to read as a writer than a good review of your work, and when that work's for children, as my book I Met a Roman Last Night, What Did You Do? is, and the good review is from someone who isn't a proper grown-up (quite yet!) then that's even better. So, yes, reading Jacob's intelligent and thoughtful review here made me very happy.

What also makes me very happy is being interviewed by the terrific Caroline Smailes. I read her second book, Black Boxes earlier in the year and utterly loved it; it's the best book I've read this year - and I was lucky enough to interview her here.

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I thought it would be fun to record myself reading from my book. Then I could put the file on my website and people could listen to my dulcet tones and think “Wow! She’s so sophisticated! I must buy that book straight away!”

I could even work out how to make it into a podcast, as the cool kids are calling it. Then bookshop managers would flock to invite me to do readings, and the standing-room-only audiences would be so impressed that they’d all buy copies for everyone they’d ever met in the whole world.

So, once my tiny tot went for his nap, I rooted out the cheapo microphone I bought off eBay, plugged it in to my laptop, cleared my throat and fired up Microsoft Sound Recorder…



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Gentlemen, ladies of noble breeding and persons of a sensitive disposition, please look away now; I’m fresh out of smelling salts and really am not equipped with the appropriate manner to deal with attacks of the vapours or unscheduled swooning.


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The moment when an idea for a novel comes to you is a magical one. The best ideas often seem to come out of the blue, unbidden and fully formed – a literary gift from the gods. All at once you’re inspired, enthused and raring to go. You know there will be periods when you feel like giving up, when your characters will make you feel like screaming, and when what initially seemed like nothing short of genius will feel more like unadulterated bilge. But you’ll carry on, because ultimately you really believe in that idea. You think about it out and about, hugging it secretly to you like a prize. It’s a goer. It’s a winner. It’s… suddenly staring up at you in synopsis form from a bookshelf you’ve been innocently browsing. It’s already been written. By someone else.


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I find as I grow into this writing life, things shift and change, and the latest shift is towards something I have been thinking about for a while: only submitting my stories to literary journals that pay.

Before I carry on, I want to stress that I certainly don't subscribe to the school of thought that submitting to non-paying journals is somehow "giving away your work for free". Not at all. Publication is a vital part of being a writer, especially a writer of short stories, and when you are beginning to send work out, being accepted for publication is extremely important. First, there is the sense that you are not just writing for yourself: one other person - the editor, who is not related to you, who doesn't know you, who isn't invested in your emotional wellbeing - has just told you that they respond to your work. You now have a reader. Then, there is the seeing of your work as part of something bigger, as part of the editor's vision for the journal. And, of course, there is the audience, the readership, others who are now being given the chance to see if they respond to your work. All of this also goes into building your reputation as a writer, getting "out there". To my mind, these things are just as important as monetary payment, if not more so.

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The resemblance to the everyday variety, though, was superficial. Standing out against the grey trees and pavements, identifiable because of its size and colour, it was a fine example of a threatened species.


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