When my friend Kellie Jackson started telling me how she came to write a story for BBC Radio 4, and what she learnt from it, I found it so fascinating that I asked her to do a guest blog for me. So here it is. The story itself, The Indian Hospital, is broadcast tomorrow, Wednesday 19th August, as part of a series of three Pavilion Pieces stories (the first is this afternoon, the third on Thursday), and when there's a Listen Again link on BBC iPlayer, I'll post it here.

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After completing an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmith’s College, I’ve been blundering along trying to complete my first novel. The trouble is as a reader and a writer, I’m drawn to short fiction. Then, by chance, I was asked to submit a sample of my writing for the opportunity to be commissioned to write a short story for Radio 4. If commissioned it would mean writing one of three stories, all by new writers, set around Brighton’s Royal Pavilion. To my utter astonishment, weeks later the producer emailed to say they liked my writing and so, I made a foray to Brighton, soaked up the inspirational Pavilion vibe, did some preliminary research in the Brighton Museum Library, and was ready to meet the producer armed with an idea. My imagination had been snagged by the transformation of the Pavilion into a Hospital for Indian soldiers at the beginning of the First World War.

Writing short fiction for radio is different from writing for print.

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It occurs to me that only women have Guilty Pleasures. Men have Appetites (to the extent of that being a legal defence from time to time). Not only must we feel guilty, as a sex, about our pleasures but there is a clear hierarchy of guilt. We are encouraged to indulge our loveably weak natures when it comes to chocolate, shoes, shopping and so on. You can see how Chick Lit took off, can't you? Sex, qua sex, is not generally encouraged unless one has the ditzy ineptitude of a Bridget Jones, who is surely the prime example of how a woman might 'fall pregnant' (presumably she slipped and landed on his appendage).

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Over the course of the last few weeks the tension has been building in the Black household.
A hungry anticipation coupled with uncharacteristic optimism has taken over.
Yes, my friends, the start of the football season has arrived. Those barren weeks of outlandish rumour are over.
Last season's disappointments are consigned to history. This year will be the one. There is everything to play for.

Those of us who follow a football team will recognise the wonderful feeling of the clean sheet. And those of us who write must surely understand that they are brothers in arms. It seems to me that writing and following the footie are so similar I'm suprised Stevie G hasn't won the Booker.

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My philosophy for signings is to expect nothing whatsoever from the bookshop. I take my own refreshments and promotional material – even down to the Blu-Tack to put up posters. I am always completely prepared to walk in and find that no one remembered I was going to be there that day...

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You may remember from a few posts ago that I was waiting to hear back from two independent publishers who had requested the full manuscript of my novel.
Months and months later I have finally heard back from one of them (we'll call them Turtle Publishers).

Unfortunately we don't feel that we can publish the book. Your opening chapter was great and your writing style was fine. However, we felt disappointed with the story... The ideas that you talk about having in the book are great - mental health, issues over the pursuit of money, dystopian society., however, we felt that they didn't come over as well as they might have done.

Ouch.

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His writing style made his work particularly suitable for adapting to the 'film noir' genre popular in US cinemas of the 40s and early 50s. When much younger I attended an 'all-night Humphrey Bogart ' programme at the NFT - ironically enough, sleeping through the Chandler-based The Big Sleep, in which Bogart made the perfect Marlowe. At a later date, though , I was wide awake to watch Robert Mitchum as the hardboiled detective hero, typically wreathed in cigarette smoke, in Farewell, My Lovely.


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Another Friday post and at 11am, what's more, so we'll start off with elevensies, one of my favourite meals of the day. Mmm, delicious. More cake?

So I am newly settled into the Land of Unlimited Coffee Refills, Big Cars and Inspirational Presidents (when did you last wear your Gordon Brown T-shirt?).
Yes, America.

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist
by Mohsin Hamid

I bought this book up because I wanted to read something different – ie, not a thriller and not YA fiction. When I picked it up I was hooked right away by the way the novel is written to the reader, as though you are the other character in the story. What follows is a lengthy monologue about the life of the MC and his experiences and opinions of the West before and after 9/11.

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This week I have been mostly tackling... eggs. Our new home requires building work, which has cleared out our little all aka the nest-egg. Which is a shame but we survive. I have written a new short story which features a man who smells of boiled eggs and baby lotion.

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One simple test to find out if someone is N or S is to show them a painting and get them to describe it. Froggy, for example, the tree-frog I bought from a local artist in Costa Rica. The painting on my office wall. I show it to you for a minute then take it away. Now tell me what you saw.

If you are S, you will tell me that it’s a painting of a frog perched at the tips of two leaves or stalks. Unusually, the leaves are bright red and so are the frogs eyes. Its legs are blue and the background is completely black. The eyes are jutting from the extreme sides of the face. The frog has three toes to each of its legs in a sort of orangey colour. The hind legs are blue but its front legs are green, which makes them look like arms. The face is the same pale green. You might mention that the artist used pastels.

If you are N, you won’t notice any of that stuff, apart from possibly the scarlet eyes. You’ll say, the frog looks as if he’s about to jump out of the painting straight into the room. You’ll say that his eyes bulge in a slightly ominous way but his wide wide mouth gives him a more friendly look. You’ll admit that you quite like the picture but might find it a bit disconcerting to have that beady-eyed frog watching you while you work.


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