I’m a big fan of September. There’s something about the smell of sharpened pencils that makes me twice as productive as other times of the year, not least because the school holidays which precede it have usually trained me to fit my work in to much less time than normal.
Sadly, by the time October rolls round, I will have lost the sense of urgency and resolve September gives me, and I will be back to checking Twitter every fifteen minutes, and wandering downstairs in search of biscuits.
But for now, my resolutions are these: write with more focus; stop working in the evenings; start saying ‘no’; exercise more; drink water. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?
Book two (working title: Do No Harm) is safely committed to paper (well, hard-drive) and just needs a few tweaks before it goes to my editor. It needs a fair amount of work, but it feels great to have it finished well before I Let You Go goes on sale, thereby avoiding the risk of terrible reviews (ever the optimist…) paralysing my writing muscles.
Speaking of reviews, I am told that bound proofs of I Let You Go have now arrived at the Little, Brown offices, and will shortly be winging their way to authors, critics and magazine editors. I cannot tell you how terrifying this is. I am torn between not wanting to know what they think of it, and being utterly desperate to know.
It is exciting enough to know that I will published in the UK (and in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland), but things became even more interesting last month. I’m delighted to share the news that I Let You Go will be published in Italy, Holland, France, Germany and the Czech Republic! In fact, Holland and Germany have bought the rights to my second book, too, which is wonderful. With Frankfurt Book Fair just around the corner, who knows where else my books will end up?