Oh - hello!

Happy new year, if February 27th isn't too late for such a greeting. I won't bore you with excuses  explanations for my shameful blog absence, in the hope of giving it a little air of mystery and intrigue, suggestive of sojourns on far-flung shores beyond the reach of wifi, or exciting happenings too top-secret to share. Anyway, here I am - still alive, still writing (still in my pyjamas at midday mostly - although perhaps I should keep quiet about that in view of the mystery and intrigue thing.)

Yesterday I managed to get changed out of my pyjamas before midday and put on mascara and decent underwear and head down to London for the RNA RoNA Awards. I hadn't intended to go, being under a self-imposed ban on fun, frivolity and glamorous events, but last week (in the middle of half term, which might not be coincidental) I had a sudden craving for all of the above; as well as for the pleasurable ache you get in your throat and feet the morning after you've talked your head off in a crowded room for a couple of hours wearing high heels. It was a fab evening, and easily justifiable to my inner Writing Despot on the grounds that it yielded not only plentiful champagne, but also bucketloads of motivation from being surrounded by totally top authors (as well as the chance to meet the amazing Susanna Kearsley in actual person, which was pretty overwhelming as I'd spent the entire journey down engrossed in The Firebird. Honestly, at my age I really should be past blushing and stammering when I meet people, shouldn't I?) Because it was a fairly last minute impulse, I didn't stay the night in town, but if I had I would have liked to spend it here, which is where Abby Green and Heidi Rice partied into the small hours on the contents of a very luxuriously-stocked mini-bar.

Anyway, the news on the homefront is that my book is coming together, though my computer is falling apart. Remember the terrifyingly efficient Mac? *hollow laugh* It is no longer presiding over my cluttered desk with its reproachful sleekness, but is in some repair centre in Warrington where, I was informed this morning, it might remain for another three weeks. THREE WEEKS? Do they not know that I've set myself a deadline of May for this book and there's still an awful lot of anguish to endure (both on the page and in reality) if that goal is to be met?? Of course there's nothing to be done (although the mini-rant on the phone was cathartic) except keep going - on scraps of paper, on the Fisher-Price netbook and the backs of envelopes if need be. Luckily I'm at the stage where the story is vivid and immediate and writing itself, which is just as well as writing is a bizarrely ritualistic activity; generally I need to be in the same place, with the same mug, the same scented candle, listening to the same music, wearing the same pyjamas for it to work. Though maybe that's not writing. Maybe that's just me.

It's been ages since I posted any writing soundtracks, so here's a bit of the music I'd be listening to, if I still had my Mac on which to listen to it. As it is, you can imagine me humming it tunelessly as I scribble away in my cheap supermarket notebook.

Incredibly...

...and at long last my website has been updated.

It’s been such a long time coming because my web-slave is a very good friend who has been going through the mill with family issues, so any time we have spent together in the last six or seven months has been more about wine and sympathy than brisk professionalism (always a stretch for me.) Anyway, after a couple of evenings, a Thai takeaway, several tubes of Pringles and several more cans of whatever lager it was that the supermarket were trying to get rid of after England's dismal exit from the World Cup… my husband and he have nailed it. (I think. I'll send chocolate to anyone who spots any mistakes!) Watch out for info on the Balfour book coming soon…

(Although I’m beginning to think I imagined ever writing the Balfour book. Still no sign of author copies yet, and no word on their whereabouts. Will keep sleuthing…)

Why did I just do that?

Sign up to twitter. I don't even know how to use it, and since the only two questions I can answer in sentences of less than 140 characters are 'Do you want a cup of tea? and 'Do you want a glass of wine?' I really don't think that I'll ever be able to use it for meaningful communication, even if I can fathom how it works.

When you sign up the first thing it asks you, in what is no doubt meant to be an encouragingly matey way is 'What's happening?' The only response I can think of to that is 'I haven't got a clue.'

I think it's called 'Progress'

Up until Saturday I’ve been writing on a computer that dates back to the late Victorian period with a hulking great beige-coloured monitor that took up half my desk. We acquired it about 7 or 8 years ago (roughly about the same time we acquired daughter #3, though not by the same means) from a friend in exchange for a bottle of wine and an Indian takeaway. Over those years I wrote my very first, tentative and badly flawed attempts at opening chapters and far-fetched synopses on it, and from the days when it did have internet connection (via a long cable that used to snake across the floor at our old house and regularly trip up daughter #3 as she took her first tottering steps) it still has stored somewhere in its dusty recesses my first emails with Penny Jordan and the editor at Richmond who read my initial submission. Sadly, it couldn’t quite keep up with the advent of wireless and broadband, and although it sounded like concorde taking off and sometimes refused to switch on, it still functioned as a decent enough word processor. Decent enough for me to have written 8.3 books on anyway, but in the last week I've been getting increasingly worried about it making it to the full 9.

All of which is an elaborate way of trying to justify the fact that I found myself in the apple shop on Saturday handing over my credit card completely on a whim and walking out with a big box containing this...

It's the depth of a slim box of matches, utterly silent, very beautiful and slightly terrifying. Every time I come into my office I get the impression that it's waiting in superior disbelief for me to write something worthy of such sleek perfection on its tiny, brushed steel keyboard. It's very clever. I actually wouldn't be surprised if it summarily deleted entire pages and just sent a terse message saying 'Do better.'

Wish me luck...