I always start my writing thinking the book might reach a certain size, then sometime during it I realise that it is turning into a behemoth. The current project is no ecception. I’m over the two-thirds mark to my original target, and feel like I’ve only just got started. There’s the whole second half still to even contemplate touching, along with several little scenes to complete within the bit I’ve just written including the death of one of the main charectors. Still, better to have plenty to say than not enough.

As another book arrived in the post to Jenny Towers courtesy of a large internet mail order company (think long river in South America here…) it struck me that whilst I do read a lot, I don’t read nearly as much as I would like to. I resolved with Zoë that when income permits, I would like to take one day perweek and have it as my ‘reading day’ I think this is important, because every author should be and keep being well read. It pays to see what other people are doing, and you can always learn from what others have written.

At the moment I seem far too weighed down to have this luxury, but in time it would be nice as I have piles of books I have yet to read. I reckon that I buy four times more books than I read, so there’s plenty to choose from. Some of these unread books are those which I stated and found so bad I never finished them. However, the majority are those which I just haven’t had time.