On tour… what it really means

Around the world in 22 days. Does that sound glamorous? Painful? Indulgent (the air tickets are, naturally, carbon offset, but it’s still a long way to go)?

At the moment it simply feels exhausting. Talk to any professional author about touring…

Weird e-mails from readers

Yes, authors do get them. Before the internet readers could barely get in touch with writers at all. They sent a letter to the publisher. The publisher sent it to your agent. Then your agent usually passed it on, by…

The great Melbourne Writers’ Festival

Here’s the view from my 39th floor full length window at the Sofitel, Melbourne (I don’t suffer from vertigo, honest, I just want to close the shutters once this photos taken). I’m finally at the major date of this tour…

A review in Japanese

You have to love Google. They keep on adding all these buttons to the Firefox toolbar it’s impossible to stop yourself clicking them to see what happens. One of them just popped up the fact that someone in Japan has…

Scrivener… at last an author’s word processor

The seventh Costa book is just about finished and will turn out to be the first novel I’ve ever produced that has never been edited in Microsoft Word. Yes, it will get turned over to the old beast at the…