The Dream Depository is still open. So if you have any dreams to add, please do. And thanks to everyone who has left dreams so far.

I've had some fascinating correspondence with the American writer and writing professor, Louis Gallo, who has interesting ideas about dreams and writing. He's recommended a method for inducing dreams, which I will reveal soon. All I can say now is that it involves bananas. He's also sent me a couple of his amazing short stories, in which dreams feaature.

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The arrival of The Girl and Boy's Australian citizenship certificates brought a lump to my throat. I know Australia isn't exactly stealing my children but that's how it feels.

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We’ve spent a lot of the day clearing out the office in order to find space for new people to sit. New people, m’dears – what fun! It’s astonishing the rubbish we’ve – well, I’ve – managed to collect over four years. Really, I’m quite ashamed. I’ve also had to move my paper cut-out altar from my cabinets onto the wall – ah, it won’t be the same … Maybe I should colour it in? Might encourage a tad more divine intervention – you never know. Anyway, we all feel cleansed after our big clear-out. And we’re waiting with great anticipation for the recycling man. What fun we have here on campus ...

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Ah the existential pain of getting back to work. It’s taken me at least four hours to get my working head on again. If I even have such a thing. Groan. Added to that, my computer is playing up big-time and I have to have one of the IT technicians come and sort it out for me before I can even get onto the web. Excel’s rather dodgy too. At least I think they’re coming to sort it out – perhaps they’re just going to shoot me and hire someone who understands the computer? It may yet be the cheaper option ...

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This time with top author and lovely lady, Luisa Plaja, whose debut novel, Split by a Kiss (Corgi Children's) will be published on March 6th.

So, who’s it for and what’s it about?

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I can't write today. Nothing. Not a word. I don't think it has anything to do with the unpleasant episode of last week, because thankfully and with exquisite timing it was followed swiftly by the acceptances of four of my flash stories by two different magazines. And when, due to previously mentioned unpleasant episode, I wrote back to make sure I would be able to see the final versions of the stories before being printed or put up on the web, both editors were so understanding (one, the delightful Colin of the Ranfurly Review, making my week by saying that "no, I won't be altering your work. It's too fine to tamper with. :-)") that I immediately realized that what had happened to me was, thankfully, an aberration. That most literary magazines have an ethical code that dictates that a writer will always be asked for approval of edits. ....

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... gone tomorrow. Sorry, just couldn't resist. Due to feeling much better today (hurrah!), I have been editing for Britain and have actually finished the Air Kingdom section in The Gifting. Well, huzzahs all round and somebody crack open the caviare. As it were. Now all I have to do is think about what the bloody hell Annyeke does next. I think she may nearly have cracked the mystery, by George. She'd better have as she only really has two sections of her story left before the finale ...

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In my dream I had been called into the offices of my publisher, Faber and Faber, to have a meeting with my editor, Walter Donohue. Walter began the meeting by saying, “This isn’t about your book. I have something to tell you. You don’t know it but you have secretly been recruited into the police ...” He showed me my badge and all the paperwork that went with it. He revealed that he had been working for the police himself for a long time. Indeed, his true role was as a recruiting sergeant--his work as a crime-fiction editor at Faber was really a front, a means of discovering writers who had potential to become detectives in the service of the police.

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.... to A Dangerous Man who was published on this day last year. Well, gosh - one year old today, Michael. Who would have thought it? It's been an up and down year, to be honest - I've been thrilled with the good reviews and general positive response to the book. No, more than thrilled actually. Hugely grateful. I'm not sure I'll ever write anything quite that heartfelt and ... well ... raw again. It feels good to have done it at least once in my writing life. On the downside, I've sold (as of the end of December) 116 books, and I was hoping for more. I'm learning to cut my cloth etc etc, however, so that can only be a good thing. But hey not too much - it is after all pure ego that keeps writers going at all!...

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I suspect that 'shu' is one of those Chinese animal names that doesn't distinguish between similar species - like 'yang', my own Chinese Zodiac sign, which can be a sheep or a goat. It's surprising, really, if there's a choice in the matter that anyone should choose 'rat' over 'mouse', especially in London with its plague-ridden past.


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