n among radio stories and marking OU assessments, a wodge of editorial reports, and assorted domestic stuff, I still have to find time to revise the current novel. This is not a mere editorial hop-and-a-skip through, sorting out typos, but heavy engineering. The novel's a single story, quite heavily plotted and almost thriller-ish, told by alternating first-person narrators, and I've decided to change the narrator for one of them. So I don't want to change the plot if I can possibly help it, and this is where my novel-planning grid comes into its own: I filled one column for the narrator who's staying - let's call her J - and then sorted out the new narrative told by M alongside it.

So far so good: up to now most scenes have involved M and S, so it's only been a practical matter of turning the scene inside out. Of course there's a subtler, trickier matter of not just subtracting S's voice and sensibility but bringing M's alive, so that the narrative reads as if it had sprung from her. It helped a lot once I'd worked out why she would be telling her story, because that affects what she tells and how she tells it. And, so far, everything I've lost in cutting S has been balanced by a greater gain. I now have confidence that the book isn't just better in the sense of working better, but is actually richer for this work. But now I've reached Day Six of the plot, and therefore Chapter Six.

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I walked down the hill in the sunshine to meet the producer of my story for Radio 4 - let's call her Rosamund - trying to assemble my thoughts about what and how I write, in the hope that I'd be ready to hitch that onto what she wanted. With any new piece of work, but particularly one which is being written to contract, there's always a finely-balanced decision about how much to play to your strengths, knowing that it's a safe(ish) bet that you'll get an okay story, and how much to challenge yourself in the hope of getting something new and extra-good, but the fear of ending up with something bad.

It had been hard to decide what stories to send her in the hope of bagging this commission; I can't help thinking about how radio stories work as stories, because I left Eden many years ago, but I'd never thought about how they work as radio. I also just don't have very many stories: I love writing them, but my writing mind spends the majority of its time processing the novel-in-progress (there always is one). It's always tempting to send 'Maura's Arm', but it's uncharacteristic in various ways: what if she commissioned me to write something based on those un-characteristics? On the other hand I also wanted to show range, not least because I hadn't the faintest idea of what's suitable for radio. So after much thought I sent an unpublished story, 'Closing Time', which was longlisted for Bridport the year after 'Maura's Arm' came third, and which I revised last year under the eye of Susannah Rickards. (Yes, I know I said I never re-visit stories, but there was a competition I wanted to enter...) And because I didn't know what Rosamund would be looking for, I sent 'Russian Tea', one of my most successful stories, but one which is unusual for me in being written in third person and with a limited, moving point-of-view.

Rosamund made coffee and told me that she loved both stories: that they were moving and beautifully written, evocative of time and place. This is always a good start. And then I told her about the story I wanted to write for her.

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Recently, I was trying to find a pressie for a writer friend of mine which prompted the idea for this post. There are SO many fabulous things out there; some practical, some shiny, some useful, some useless but funny (UBF) but all are worth having! Prices range from cheap as chips to pricey - there's something for every pocket. Alas, I haven't been able to post pictures of them but please do follow the links...So, here are a few of my favourite writerly things:


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Well despite working a twelve hour shift today, I managed to get quite a bit of writing done: 3 haikus (short, I know!), an ode and a piece of flash fiction (wrote in the staff room on my lunch break). Might take a notebook to bed and try to do something else later on, too. Am feeling very motivated, which is normal, I guess, as it's only the first day... I think what I want to achieve out of this challenge is

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So, halfway back up the A23 to London from my research trip to Brighton, I had what I was fairly sure was a viable idea for my first ever story for radio. Pier Productions' brief for this trio of stories, 'Lost in the Lanes', gave me my central problem, and I had 2000 words to solve it in. Next had to come Who? and Why? And in beginning to think those out (dream them up? But it felt more like 'discover them'...) I realised I absolutely knew where the story ended both physically and emotionally, because it's bedded in the physical and emotional shape of Brighton. It's not uncommon for me to know where the story must end before I know much else and, as I was exploring in How Are You Going to Get There, it can be hugely helpful: if a short story embodies a single moment of change, then if you know where you're going to end up, it becomes fairly easy to think backwards over the hump of the assymetric hill, to where the story must begin. After that, it's only (only! hah!) a matter of writing your way from one to the other. (In looking for that link, I find that it, too, sprang from thinking while I was driving. Interesting. Driving, being a right-brained activity, means that your dominant left brain switches off, and your creative, free-wheeling right brain, for once, can take control)

But just as the cloud of unknowing in my head became big and thick enough to seem inevitable, I suddenly remember that the producer might not like this idea.

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MARCUS BENTLEY VOICE-OVER:
Seven twenty-one pm.
Susie is in the study.
She appears to be busy writing a novel.
In fact, she has been given a Secret Task.
She is writing a post for Strictly…

Here it comes again – for possibly the final time. Tonight, seventy-nine crazy, egotistical and desperate wannabes will fight to win the (apparent) privilege of entering the Big Brother house. Among the would-be housemates are a neuroscientist, an ex Royal servant and a one-legged author. By midnight, the chosen few will be ensconced, their every flaunt, bitch and bicker recorded, edited and transmitted to the viewing public. Of whom (of which?) I’ll be one.

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The host isn't always the same librarian, but the role is much the same: replenishing the drinks and biscuits supplies, updating the comment file and prompting discussion. Not that it's necesary - tastes vary and most people are ready to give opinions.

A big advantage with the crime genre is the range. The more predictable British and American writers like Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Lynda La Plante, Nicci Gerrard and James Elroy take turns with literary works, such as Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair and Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.

More recently there's been a spate of Scandinavian authors: Arnaldur Indridson's Silence of the Grave; Hakan Nesser's The Return and of course Stieg Larsson's The Dragon Tattoo It's prompted interesting discussion about national characteristics and representation in crime novels.

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I’ve been thinking about reading habits and whether you can you make judgements about a person based on the way they behave around books. I think the answer is probably 'Hell, yes!'
Take this quiz and find out whether you are a biblio-star or a biblio-slut.


Answer this question. ‘I keep my books...’
a) ‘Alphabetically arranged or by author. It’s important that my shelves are neat.’
b) ‘Not in any particular order but I usually know where things are.’
c) ‘I have to negotiate my way round the teetering piles in order to locate the washbasket and find my clean pants.’

You

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I’ve successfully avoided writing now for about...well, lots of days. How many, I’m not sure but I’d stab a guess at about twenty four. Twenty Four! I hear you all exclaim. That’s not days, that’s almost four weeks! But up until this moment in time, I haven’t wanted to face that. I’ve been happily ignoring the passage of time on that river in Egypt. ‘De Nile’ as they called it in the Dublin I grew up in.

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