Remember Wolverine in X-Men, shooting those wickedly sharp blades through his knuckles? ‘Does it hurt?’ Rogue asks anxiously. ‘Every time,’ Wolverine replies. Rejection is tough. It hurts. Every time. And of course, it’s your own fault, because you just keep trying. But there are things to be said, and it
So Jay Rayner appears at Hay. His audience of 500 people had paid £7 per ticket and he was given a flower in payment. That’s not ok. I absolutely and completely accept that this is not ok. And I admire Philip Pullman for resigning as patron the Oxford Literary Festival
Yesterday evening, four W&N debut authors formed a panel at the tenth Chorleywood Literary Festival, organized by the wonderful Chorleywood Books. Catriona Ward (Rawblood), Colin Macintyre (The Letters of Ivor Punch), Laura Barnett (The Versions of Us) and I, chaired by Morag Watkins, talked about our novels, about getting
And before I say anything at all, I need to say that the London Book Fair is incredible. I’ve never been before. I may never get to go again. But walking into Olympia yesterday, clutching my pass in my hot little hand and walking in to this monumental hive of
So I had a launch party for The Ship. Before I got published, I thought launch parties just happened. But like so many things in life, you have to make them happen if you want them. At first I thought it would be interesting to get everyone to come
So here it is. Twenty one sleeps until The Ship is published. Twenty one sleeps until I am a published author. And here are some good things that have happened: The inaugural Curtis Brown Book Group selected The Ship as its first book choice, and tomorrow I get to answer
I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks. But Christmas is quite a big thing round here. Four children who still believe in Father Christmas and the Advent Fairy (lovely fairy, brings a small present every day and leaves a note saying where to find it. Except she doesn’t
Three months doesn’t sound like very long. It doesn’t sound like very long at all. By the end of next week, I should have decided on and booked a venue for the launch party. On Twitter, where everything is shiny, I shall post much (genuine) excitement about this. But here,
Having started this monthly countdown to publication by acknowledging that I needed to get some domestic help, I’d intended to use this post to write about the help I finally sought; what worked, what hasn’t worked, and about how, when you delegate something, there’s a strange patch of time when
If you’ve ever made butter, you’ll recognize the feeling of churning the cream for hours and hours, seemingly getting nowhere, and then realizing all of a sudden that the grains of butterfat are beginning to form and find each other. It’s been a year since my book deal; now, all