Wednesday 30 May 2012

Suddenly Sophie

And while I'm waiting, suddenly (or not quite so) we have Sophie, weighing in at 7lb 6oz which is, oh you do the math, if you want it in Kilos, I have drilling going on at the gable end and it's driving me absolutely daft, feels like they're coming right through my head, even with ear plugs in. So I'm typing this only half here (hear even) in a world that seems full of dentists, lurking noisily around corners, waiting to pounce, and that's just every body's nightmare. Think of your worst experience and magnify it by a thousand. That's the work going on with my crumbling gable end. That's not a medical condition or anything requiring hormones, by the way. Yet, when it stops, it's pure Heaven, and I take a look at Sophie, and that's even purer Heaven. She looks slightly miffed and blinklingly bemused, rather like a mole heaved out into daylight. This new world full of flashes and sparks and noise and movement. Whoa! Scary! We've all been through it, but who remembers the day they were born?  Anyway, I'll be delivering my own, metaphorical, baby in January. It won't be mewling or puking or doing anything remotely babyish, but still, it's my creation and will have a naming ceremony and bubbles and anything else that I can throw at it. Check out the Bloomsbury site and see the details, book your copy, wait with me, all eager, and watch me being winkled out of my comfortable little world, watch me blink.

Thursday 24 May 2012

old book, new book and summer mists.

It's that time already, when I check my blog and think whoops, left it too long. Don't look at me like that, you have no idea how busy I've been. Thinking, worrying, frustrating, and that's just about which brand of beans to buy. Anyway, things are moving with Anthem for Jackson Dawes, which comes out in January, I'm shockingly delighted to say, and just a tad tingly about. The road has been busy of late with the traffic of copy editing, details to address, long phone calls between here and London, little changes, bigger changes, relief at nothing to change too much and just yesterday, hopefully putting it to bed, letting it sleep and wake up in a cover and binding in 2013. Perhaps a premature dream but I can own my dreams and have them when I like. Erm. Think so anyway. Speaking of which, I have a dream for novel number 2 which plagues me day and night, which makes dull wallpaper of the rest of the world and its troubles, and which is boiling away inside the pressure cooker that is me. I've sent off the idea and a few extracts and though it would be silly to hold my breath or hang on by the fingernails till the decision is made, that's what I'm doing, metaphorically.  What a delicious agony, a lovely dilemma to be in. At least that's what I tell myself. Others might say, get yourself a proper job, woman, and stop wandering around in the mist. But no. I like the mist. It's there for a purpose. I like the moo of fog horns at night and clang of the bell on the buoy. And when it all clears I can start. Just waiting, poised, for the sun to burn it all away. Keep tuned.