Chris, my editor, has my revised draft of the first three chapters on his desk, and so far he hasn't said anything except 'Hello' and 'Sit down'. I don't want him to start talking. I feel like a school kid in the headmaster's office who's done something wrong and has no defence. But he does start talking. Because, ultimately, after arranging the appointment and letting me into his office and facing me across his desk, it would have been weird if he hadn't.

"Right then," he begins. "My first thought upon reading the new draft is that you haven't actually really changed anything. Would you say that's a fair assessment?"

I shift uncomfortably in my comfortable chair. "Well, what is 'fair', really?"

"Sorry?"

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Had a lovely Christmas day yesterday, shared entirely with Lord H. Bliss indeed. We were planning to go to the Christmas morning service, but in the end we got rather involved with my new website the night before (watch this space - it's looking fab!) so didn't get to bed till midnight. So no chance of leaping up in the morning and paying our religious respects to the Almighty. Ah well ...

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


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Lord H and I were listening to the radio on our way down to Pulborough Brooks today and the News informed us that an unnamed man had been taken in for questioning for something or other. It struck us both that surely it would be much easier for the police to round up all the unnamed men and put them somewhere they could keep an eye on them, a strategy (argghh! The "S" word - sorry ...) that would surely bring the crime rate down in leaps and bounds. I also thought it did seem unnecessarily cruel for parents not to name their children in the full and certain knowledge that said unnamed child would grow up to be a criminal. Really, the Government should make naming a child mandatory. That would help the crime rate too ...

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Goodness me - what a busy day indeed! But fear not (as the angels said ...), some of the title events actually took place yesterday so I am not stretched out in a gutter somewhere attempting to regain my strength. Not entirely anyway. Had a wonderful dinner at Liz & John's - great food, great company and a really really good laugh. The social highlight of my Christmas, I believe. Many thanks, Liz. I was also very touched as three of the couples there (Liz & John, Robin & Gavin, Michael & Mary) are all very keen to come to the February launch of Thorn in the Flesh, and take me out for a celebratory dinner afterwards. Gosh indeed! And they might even buy a copy of the book - double gosh!...

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Last night at 4am, walking home from a club, I was set upon by five lads who started calling me names. Names like queer, poof, and faggot. I shouldn’t have left my friends and stumbled home alone. This city can be dangerous. I should have kept my head down and my mouth shut, but unfortunately, being a bit of a hothead sometimes (and exceedingly drunk), I responded by telling them what I thought of them. Cowards, one and all.

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Had a lovely long lie-in today. Felt I deserved it, but still felt guilty I wasn't up and doing stuff. Ye gods, but I have to learn how to relax. I really need to take lessons in it or something. I rubbed my special Clarins relax oil on my shoulders this morning, but I think it might be fighting a losing battle. Though it's a lovely smell of course.

For most of the day, Lord H and I have been wandering around Thursley Common spotting birds and working out which direction we should be going in. It's a fantastic place - bleak and black and gold and strange. All at the same time too. Almost like a landscape from another world ...

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Xmas is getting closer and, surprisingly, I'm almost finished. Have run out of sultanas and suet as the birds have been given a festive treat. In turn, they've rewarded me with their constant presence. Two thrushes have been venturing into the garden braving six blackbirds wrath. Managed to finish Prospero's flash. It's milder today but a misty grey that hangs drearily over trees.

Is it just the human condition, or is it the particular fate of novelists to live with contradictions? In Being a snow leopard I explored the creative potential in having a foot in each camp, but now I'm talking about things that actually preclude each other. For example, in our writing we explore human interactions in all their multiplicity and complexity, but almost all of us need to be alone to do that work. We read and research and plan, but must be prepared to abandon it all if the story or the characters - those strange, seemingly pre-existing entities - seem to demand it. We write books that are carefully, so carefully, constructed to work all of a piece, but we make them too long to be read all of a piece, in one sitting. We may devote our working life and our hearts and minds to a novel for months and years, knowing that perhaps no publisher will buy it. And then we spent years promoting, selling and talking about a novel that is, in a way, gone. Not dead, but past. The real, burning fire in our minds by then is about something else entirely...

Why? I've said before that some of what drives most writers is neither balanced nor healthy, and I claim no greater sanity than any other of us.

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1. Never leave your only winter coat in your partner's car on a Sunday night

2. With your keys in it

I was still drowsy on Monday morning when The Australian whipped out his wallet, bizarrely Del-Boy-like, and produced a tenner:
'Do you want to give this to the bin men?' he said.
'Umm, do I?' said I. Despite having thought about my bin men tip dilemma approximately every half hour since the previous Monday, I'd failed to work out a definite strategy.

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