Someplace To Go

Cattive Compagnie

2011-06-07T09:23:00.002+01:00

Garzanti have just published the Italian translation of The Company of Shadows. It's called "Cattive Compagnie" ("Bad Company") and is out now!

Review in The Times!

2011-02-07T15:28:00.007Z

How exciting to get a review in The Times ... entertainingly, only found out about it when Guy Saville, whose book The Afrika Reich was reviewed in the same issue, friended me on Facebook!

Here's the review, which I had to pay a quid to read ;-)

Ruth Newman’s The Company of Shadows is a tragic love story evolves into a missing-person mystery, then a murder hunt that reaches a bloodthirsty climax in a twisting tale of confused identity and morality.

Londoner Kate has been mourning her dead husband for a year when she sees a man who looks identical to him in her friends’ recent holiday photos. She sets off in search of this improbable twin, first to Miami, then to Sicily, the scene of his death by drowning.

Every step she takes is watched, and anyone she approaches either threatens her or ends up dead, as Kate’s unanswered questions about her husband’s fate drag her ever deeper into a web of danger and deceit.

Topically enough, the finale involves America’s leading Mafia families in a cinematic Las Vegas, where ends that have been twisting in myriad directions are cleverly tied together.

Sijthoff re-releasing Twisted Wing

2011-01-05T08:45:00.002Z

I'm happy to say that the Dutch translation of The Company of the Shadows, "Schaduwkant", has done quite well in the Netherlands and so the publishers, Sijthoff, have decided to rerelease Twisted Wing.

Previously Vleugels van Angst ("Wings of Fear"), it will now be called simply Vleugels (erm, "Wings" - but you'd worked that out, hadn't you? You're clever), and as you can see, the proposed cover is quite a departure from the previously rather punky version! I think it's Olivia going "where's my fecking punt then?!" Very pretty...

New foreign editions!

2010-09-29T10:52:00.017+01:00

Twisted Wing is now out in Portugal under the title Os Rostos Do Mal ("The Faces of Evil"). Meanwhile the Netherlands version of The Company of Shadows is called Schaduwkant ("Shadow Cast"), and the Polish version is titled Cienie Marzeń ("Shadows of Dreams").

So what do you think of the covers? The Portugese masked killer is a bit scary. The Dutch cover does a really good job of making a pic of a girl in a summer dress somewhat sinister. The Polish cover amuses me as the heroine is described in the book as having black hair and grey eyes; but at least the model looks like she would happily kick you in the 'nads, which is appropriate for the character... ;-)

The Company of Shadows

2010-07-09T17:23:00.003+01:00

So book 2 is now out! The Company of Shadows was published by Simon & Schuster yesterday. Available via Amazon of course, and there will be signed copies at Heffers in Cambridge from Tuesday onwards.

Flicking through her friends' holiday snaps, Kate Benson receives a sudden shock. For there in the background is her husband, Charlie. Dark hair, blue eyes, familiar smile: there's no mistaking him. But that's impossible. Because Charlie died exactly a year ago. Determined to track down the man in the photograph, Kate follows the trail from Miami to Sicily, where her husband drowned in mysterious circumstances. But when she discovers serious discrepancies in the original investigation, Kate starts to question whether she ever really knew the man she loved so much. Was Charlie murdered? Was their marriage as perfect as Kate remembers? Who are the people following her? Who can she trust? And is Kate herself to be trusted? Because there are secrets in her past too ...

Now onto book 3!

A weekend in Cognac

2009-10-30T15:07:00.003Z

A couple of weekends ago I went to France for an awards dinner. Twisted Wing, or Les Visages du Mal as it's called on the other side of the Channel, was nominated for Le Prix Polar International. Travelling on Eurostar for the first time (it's great!), we navigated the Metro and the French railway system to arrive in the pretty town of Cognac on Friday night.

I lost out to fellow Brit Lord Jeffrey Archer (above), author of the multimillion-selling Kane & Abel (among other works), on the night, but met some lovely and interesting people. Anne-France, my editor at Editions France, was utterly charming, as were her colleagues Isabelle and Chantal. Lord Archer (or "Jeff", as I like to call him) was very entertaining and encouraging. Journalist Bertrand Rosenthal told us fascinating anecdotes of his time as a correspondent in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq and Cuba. And French author Sire Cedric made me jealous as he told me he spent six months writing then six months partying! I currently spend five days working, half a day writing, half a day playing Xbox and the rest of the time asleep. At least I got to experience a brief weekend of glamour!

Le Prix Polar International 2009

2009-10-15T17:37:00.002+01:00

I'm off to Cognac in France tomorrow to attend the Prix Polar dinner. "Les Visages du Mal", which is what Twisted Wing is called in its French translation (published by Editions France), has been nominated for Le Prix Polar International. I've got no chance of winning - look at the other nominees! - but I'm thrilled to even be included on that list. And I'm also looking forward to spending the weekend in France, meeting my French publishers, drinking lots of Beaujolais and Pinot Noir, and travelling on the Eurostar for the first time!

Hopefully I'll be able to update you next week with entertaining photos of me, tipsy, embarrassing fellow nominee Lisa Unger by gushing about how much I enjoyed "Blackout" (which I was coincidentally reading when I found out about the award nomination)... :-)

13 Writing Tips

2009-09-17T11:51:00.002+01:00

Just read Fight Club author Chuck Palaniuk's excellent 13 Writing Tips blog post, and had to pass it on. Tip #1 is excellent advice - the number of times I've procrastinated then wondered why when after 10 mins I'm 'in the zone'... but tips #2 and #3 are the ones that are really resonating with me at the moment:

#2: Your audience is smarter than you imagine. Don't be afraid to experiment with story forms and time shifts. My personal theory is that younger readers distain most books - not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today's reader is smarter. Movies have made us very sophisticated about storytelling.

#3: Before you sit down to write a scene, mull it over in your mind and know the purpose of that scene. What earlier set-ups will this scene pay off? What will it set up for later scenes?

I'm editing book 2 at the moment, and there's quite a lot of discussion going on with my readers/editors as to whether certain elements of it are confusing. Basically there's a final surprise at the end, and it's quite an important one that explains a lot about the main character and the love of her life. However my editor wants me to cut it, as there are already a lot of twists, turns and other surprises in the book, and she thinks the foreshadowing/hints I'm dropping are going to confuse the reader - that when they read the hint their reaction will be "huh?", but that it won't be a big enough "huh?" that they'll remember the hint at the end of the book.

So do I follow Palahniuk's advice and trust that the reader is intelligent enough to both pick up on those hints and remember them at the end, when sense can be finally be made of them? My instinct is 'yes'. Maybe the solution isn't to cut the twist altogether, but to weave in more hints, so in the final pages the reader's reaction is "aha! now it all makes sense". I just need to find that fine line between the kind of gossamer foreshadowing that the reader brushes off like a cobweb strung between two lampposts, and sledgehammer foreshadowing that whacks the reader over the head until said twist becomes so obvious that they have a skull fracture.

Wish me luck.

The Company of Shadows

2009-08-25T14:44:00.003+01:00

Well we've chosen a title for the second book, and it's not on the list! Thank you nevertheless to everyone who voted!

Here's the back cover blurb for - wait for it - "The Company of Shadows":

Flicking through her friends’ holiday snaps, Kate Benson receives a sudden shock. For there in the background is her husband, Charlie. Dark hair, blue eyes, familiar smile: there’s no mistaking him. But that’s impossible. Because Charlie died a year ago.

Determined to track down the man in the photograph, Kate follows the trail from Miami to Sicily, where her husband drowned in mysterious circumstances. But when she discovers serious discrepancies in the original investigation, Kate starts to question whether she ever really knew the man she loved so much.

Was Charlie murdered? Was their marriage as perfect as Kate likes to remember? Why is she being followed? Who can she trust? And is Kate herself to be trusted? Because there are secrets in her past too . . .

Front Row, BBC Radio 4, Weds 17 June 2009

2009-06-18T09:10:00.004+01:00

Ooh, thanks to the lovely tool that is "Listen Again", I just heard Twisted Wing mentioned on the BBC Radio 4 programme Front Row. Mark Lawson and reviewer Jeff Park were lovely about it, and Jeff bigs up Cambridge as the fictional crime capital of the UK!

If you want to listen to it yourselves, it's about 15 mins and 50 secs in: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kwp0z/Front_Row_17_06_2009/

Help me choose the title for book no. 2!

2009-06-16T15:17:00.003+01:00

Well book no.2 whizzed its way to my agent, the lovely Vivien Green of Sheil Land Associates, yesterday. Trouble is, we're still a bit stuck with a title! Would appreciate any feedback, either via the poll or via comments... :-)

Twisted Wing out in Italy

2009-06-10T12:44:00.002+01:00

I'm happy to say that Twisted Wing is now out in Italy, under the title "Il College Delle Brave Ragazze" ("College of the Brave Girls" or so Google Translate tells me!). Visit the Garzanti Libri website to find out more!

In other news, my lovely German teacher (from way back when - trust me, it's been many years since I was in a classroom!) tells me she's persuaded her book group to read Twisted Wing - thanks Mrs O!

Twisted Wing out in China

2009-05-29T17:28:00.000+01:00

Fellow blogger Joann Chang, who writes a mystery blog in China, has kindly emailed to let me know that the traditional Chinese translation has just come out, with the title 扭曲的翅膀. You can buy it here, but just a warning - avoid the mini extract beneath as it's a bit of a spoiler!

Twisted Wing reviewed in the Spectator

2009-04-30T12:29:00.002+01:00

The online review of Twisted Wing has appeared on the Spectator's website today; think the print issue is due out imminently. Have just noticed that it appears to have been written by Nigel Lawson - blimey! It's exciting enough to be reviewed at all, let alone by someone as well known as Nigel Lawson!

Hopefully they won't mind me reprinting the review in full:

A crime story of a more serious kind is Twisted Wing, by Ruth Newman, which is set in Cambridge. The novel begins at the fictitious Ariel College, where a third female student in two years has been gruesomely murdered. Sitting next to the butchered corpse, bruised and insensible with shock, is Olivia Corscadden, another student. Matthew Denisoan, the psychologist attached to the case, is convinced that Olivia saw what happened, but for weeks she is in a state of terror-induced catatonia to the point where she has to be tube-fed. When her condition improves, Denison interviews her and a shocking picture begins slowly to emerge, as Denison and his colleagues in the police try to capture a serial killer.

In structure, this is classic crime fiction, with a ring of suspects, false leads and deftly laid twists — the very stuff of Morse and Marple. In content, however, it is less homely. By comparison with Twisted Wing, an episode of Taggart seems positively dainty: this novel explores deep psychosis and child abuse, among other horrors, and presents murders of extraordinary bloodthirstiness, so that one is alternately impressed by the technique and chilled by the effect.

There are just a few teething problems in this strong debut. It could have done with better proofing, to excise errors such as ‘she was sat’ and to rework the odd infelicity of style. The ending also, while gripping, left some small areas of the plotting looking questionable. But Newman is a good new writer, and Twisted Wing is a well-paced, rigorously researched and captivating crime novel which would lend itself to a screen adaptation.

Think I might have to insist the next edition of the book has "Makes Taggart look dainty" plastered across the cover - love it!

See the review on the Spectator's website »

Twisted Wing Book Launch at Heffers

2009-04-15T12:24:00.001+01:00

Cripes, it's been a while since an update, eh? Think I might have to start doing posts wittering about nothing in particular, rather than waiting till I have book-related news!

Last month the launch party for Twisted Wing took place in Heffers Bookshop, Cambridge. Loads of lovely friends and family turned up, coming from London, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Reading and also just down the road! Had a very pleasant surprise when two old school friends, Adina and Mey Yee, turned up unexpectedly, and we followed the party by going to the local tapas bar and getting sozzled on cava sangria. Those of you that have read the book may recognise Adina's name; she's a barrister, and helped me out with some of the legal aspects of the book. Naming a character/street/shop after someone is a little shoutout of thanks! Tracey Webb, a character in the book who discovers the first body, is named after my friend Tracey who happens to run the website where I work. I've promised her she can play the role in the movie, as long as she's prepared to do a Mrs Overall impression (Tracey Webb is a cleaner), but she seems strangely unimpressed by this offer.

In other news Simon & Schuster, who will be publishing the mass market paperback edition of Twisted Wing next Spring, have just bought my second novel (which currently has a working title of All the Old Familiar Places), which should be out in the Summer of 2010. I met them for the first time recently and they're a lovely bunch, so I'm looking forward to working with them again. Next to deliver draft v2 by the end of May!

Twisted Wing out in France on 22 Jan 2009

2009-01-14T14:00:00.005Z

And next on the whistlestop tour of lovely European countries is France, where Twisted Wing is called Les Visages du Mal ("The Faces of Evil"). Love that cover, what a clever idea to have the gargoyle high above the Cambridge skyline. I'm looking forward to getting my free copies of the Polish and French translations so they can go on my dedicated bookshelf of gloatiness.

The Christmas FrightFest went as planned - "The Mist" was my Mum's favourite, but boy was it bleak. "Death Line" was a load of pants, don't bother. Also don't bother with "The Breed", a Michelle Rodriguez film about very intelligent but violent dogs - I nearly wet myself during one particularly ~~silly~~ scary scene involving a seaplane. If the director had been playing it for laughs it would've been edited in exactly the same way. There were lots of shots throughout of dogs gathering on the horizon which were obviously meant to be very ominous, but just made you go: "aw, look at that cute little doggie, look how fluffy he is!" And the dogs practically wagged their tails during the attack scenes they were having so much fun. (Note: this mocking tone would not have applied had the film makers decided to go with spider baddies rather than canine baddies. Although can spiders chew through your mooring rope so your only method of escape begins to float away then wait for you casually on the wings of said seaplane, looking for all the world like they're chillaxing till their wrangler waves a doggie biscuit behind the camera? No.)

All The Old Familiar Places (working title for book no.2) is nearly done - took a red pen at it over the weekend and rewrote a couple of key scenes. Having said that, a very honest mate who's currently reading it told me a couple of days ago: "that doesn't work, that should be in the third person, that bit is too smug". So when he's finished and has given me all his feedback I'll need to a) do another draft, b) find some way of dismembering and disposing of his bloody corpse so no one will ever find it again...

Twisted Wing out in Poland

2008-12-17T18:08:00.005Z

Looks like Twisted Wing is now out in Poland, where it is going by the title "Bal Absolwentów" - which my good friend Ania K. translates as "Graduates' Ball". Let's hope no one buys it expecting anything along the lines of "Pretty in Pink", eh? ("Pretty in Blood Red" etc. etc.)

Saw "Changeling" on Monday. What a lovely, festive film. Really put me in the Christmas spirit. Having said that, my Xmas plans currently revolve around me and my mum having a DVD version of Frightfest, with movies currently lined up including "The Exorcist", "Cloverfield" , "The Mist" and "Death Line", an early 80s film about zombies infesting the Tube. Can't wait!

Obama makes history

2008-11-06T12:27:00.006Z

Back in January I wrote "Looks like we've got a pretty good chance of a Democrat in the White House next election (to paraphrase Chris Rock, Dubya did such a bad job that there's no way a white guy can get elected)." Well following the Republication Convention when McCain got a bump in the polls, that statement was starting to look a bit shaky. You can imagine my relief then when Barack Obama won the election.

At the start of the primaries I was a Hillary fan - as a woman I was loving the idea of a fellow female in the White House - but I remember picking up a magazine (not sure which one - Forbes? The Economist?) and reading a piece by her opponent, Barack Obama. Not that it was any help to him - I couldn't vote, I couldn't even donate money to his campaign - but he won me over right there and then. Part of the article talked about the way America approached other countries and cultures: as they believe their democracy is the greatest in the world, they can sometimes find it hard to see the value in different ways of life. Just the idea of someone who could speak to the Arab people, for example, with respect for their beliefs whether or not it was a belief he shared, seemed such a breath of fresh air after the past eight years of the Bush doctrine.

My friend JT kindly invited me and friend Tracey round to his to watch the election kick off. As you can tell by our hats, we were completely bi-partisan. Nearly every commentator (except a few of the Republicans, natch) were talking as though an Obama win was a foregone conclusion, which promoted an atmosphere more of expectation than nail-baiting tension.

JT and I had spent a night the previous week watching the last few episodes of the final season of The West Wing. Remember the scenes of Josh Lyman and Matt Santos having to watch the TV like everyone else to find out which candidate each state was being called for, I couldn't help imagining what Obama was feeling as he and his team saw the results coming in.

Once Ohio was called for Obama it was pretty much all over bar the shouting. By that time I was at home in my PJs, sat on the sofa under a duvet eating tortilla chips and trying not to fall asleep. You'd think the Yanks would be more understanding and try and get their results in a little earlier so their transatlantic neighbours could get some sleep.

In Arizona, McCain's HQ announced that he would address his supporters at 5am - the election hadn't been called for Obama yet, but there was pretty much no chance of McCain winning with Ohio out the window, so everyone knew it was going to be a concession speech. And with Virginia and Florida being called for the Democrats, it was official - America's 44th president was going to be Barack Hussein Obama.

I watched crowds going crazy in Grant Park, Chicago, and Times Square, New York. I wished I was there. I shed a tear. So did Jesse Jackson; no doubt he was thinking of his old friend Martin Luther King.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Obama took to the stage and everyone just went crazy. At times it seemed as though his speech would soar to the same kind of heights as King's had in '63, but he reined it in. No point in spinning everyone into a frenzy of even greater expectations when, as he said, "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term".

For those of us that were sad to be observers rather than participants, he seemed to be speaking to us when he said:

"To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-text1105,0,2684817.story

When I finally made it to bed at well gone five am, I was a very happy bunny. Still, his inauguration seems a long way away. Roll on 20th January 2009!

Where did the summer go?

2008-09-15T14:06:00.003+01:00

"What summer?" some of you may well ask.

In between entertaining myself with the Xbox's Lego Star Wars game (Chewbacca pulls stormtroopers' arms out, it's genius) and finally sorting out the back garden (yes, my life is this glamorous), I spent my hols finishing off book no.2.

It's not a crime novel as such - no serial killers or detectives - but I'm hoping I can get away with writing something in a different genre. I'm looking to two of my fav authors - Harlan Coben and Dennis Lehane - as examples here: if your second genre is that of the thriller, maybe it's not too much of a leap? ;-)

It's 98% ready to get picked apart and put back together again, I just need to work out how to do the epilogue. At the moment I'm thinking of switching from first person to third and from past tense to present ... still, there's a lot of info to convey and I know how annoying it can be when you feel as a reader like you were left by the side of the road while the characters disappear off by themselves. Maybe inspiration will strike soon!

Never judge a book by its cover

2008-05-28T10:28:00.009+01:00

Here's the fab cover for the UK version of Twisted Wing. I think it sums up the book really well - it definitely gets across the Cambridge feel, and I love the fact it's taken from the shadows.

The novel's currently scheduled for release in March 2008. Susan, the publisher, tells me that the ARCs (advance reader copies) should be ready soon. Can't wait to hold one in my hand!

This is the Dutch cover. Think it's being published in the Netherlands in the summer. This cover's a bit more edgy - I like the effect of the blood being the only bit of colour in the picture. The title translates to "Wings of Fear", which is pretty funny. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the book title turns out to be in different countries - I get the feeling it might be very entertaining!

At the last count the book is going to be translated in seven other languages - Dutch, Italian, Portugese, German, Chinese (for Taiwan), Polish and Romanian. I'm going to put a copy of each on a special bookshelf so I can stroke them erotically on a regular basis.

Book no.2 is currently at 85,000 words, and I've just finished drafting the structure of the final segment. There's still a lot of writing to do, so I'm thinking I might take a week off work in the summer and get my head down. For a few weekends I was on a real roll of 5,000 words a session, and if I could maintain that over five days I'd be very happy. Something tells me I may need to get my boyfriend to lock my PVR and XBox 360 in a cupboard though if I'm not going to find myself procrastinating!

Maldivian Bliss

2008-04-03T11:54:00.005+01:00

I know it seems as though I spend most of my time on this blog recounting my holidays, and I know I promised some writing updates soon, but ... wow. The Maldives are like being in a Bounty advert. And since I could only afford this dream holiday because of the advance from Goldmann, Twisted Wing's German publisher, it sort of counts as writing-related! Either than or crowing. One of the two.

A diary from our week on Rangali Island:

Thursday
Arrive at the island about 23 hours after stepping out the front door. Qatar's in-flight entertainment is great, so the two lots of long flights weren't as painful as I'd been expecting. In the Conrad sea plane departure lounge we're given chilled towels and fruit juice. Flying over the Indian Ocean to the island in the little air taxi, we see little atolls rising out of the turquoise water. The puffy clouds seem to hug the sea.

The island hosts come out to the jetty to welcome us. Everyone goes barefoot on the island, even in the restaurants at night! Our host, Nasheed, tells us all about the island and then takes us via golf buggy to our villa. We've got a water villa - one of those ones on stilts over the sea - in the spa retreat area. The villa's huge, with a bath that's probably bigger than our entire bathroom at home, and a private sundeck. Although we're knackered, Steve can't resist the lure of the sea and goes on a snorkelling expedition. I relax on a sunlounger on the deck, where I start to hear a weird clicking sound. Too chilled out to investigate, I carry on reading until the clicking gets closer. I look down to find a massive crab scuttling across the decking. It's hard to know which of us gets the bigger shock - the crab's eyes seem to bug out a bit, and he zooms under my sunbed to hide from me, obviously unaware I'm vegetarian.

We have dinner at the island's massive buffet restaurant, Atoll Market. On the way back to the villa we try out one of the hammocks on the beach, and gaze up at the unfamiliar constellations through the palm fronds. There's so little light pollution here that the stars seem impossibly bright against the black sky.

Friday
We wake up early, our body clocks out of whack, and have a quick breakfast at our nearest restaurant, the healthy "Mandhoo Spa". The island never seems to get that busy, even though it's apparently fully booked - maybe one of the advantages of going five stars is you're not packed in like sardines! Making the most of the fact the other guests aren't up and about yet, we monopolise the water sports centre for an hour, trying out a jetski and being dragged around on inflatables. Afterwards, walking back to our villa along the long walkway bridge, we spot baby reef sharks in the shallows. We have a bit more R'n'R on the sundeck, but are interrupted by a rain shower. Gives us the opportunity to try out the monsoon showerhead!

Staying in a spa water villa entitles us to a certain amount of credit at the spa, so we head over there for a "refresh air ritual" - a foot massage, followed by sea salt body exfoliations, then a shower, then a full body and Indian head massage. The whole island is geared towards couples rather than families/singles, and so each massage room has two beds so you can have your treatments side by side. Steve's a massage virgin, and despite the paper thong he was made to wear, he's keen on repeating the experience so we book in for lots more over the rest of the week!

We head over to the smaller island for dinner, which starts with a glass of champagne at Vilu Bar, looking out at the sunset over the water. We're then taken down, along with four other couples, to the temperature-controlled Wine Cellar, where we are seated round a large table. The island's sommelier acts as host, explaining during each course why he's chosen that particular wine to accompany it. Halfway through we have the "three mystery wines" section, where we have to guess the origins of each glass. Luckily I'm a bit squiffy, so I'm not too embarrassed when he makes me guess first! I entertain myself hugely by successfully opting for "Spain" and "New World" for glasses one and two, and beating Steve in the process. By the end of the evening, most of us are completely drunk. Steve asks the sommelier how he avoids getting pissed every night. The sommelier tells us he only has a sip of each wine. The poor man is obviously used to the conversation levels degenerating as the night goes on.

We wait for the dhoni - a Maldivian boat which acts as ferry between the two islands - to come and pick up us, entertaining ourselves by watching three crabs jostle for prime position on the jetty. Each night we come back from dinner to discover a different soft toy has been left for us by the guy who does the evening turndown. Tonight's toy is a turtle, which makes Steve happy since he loves 'em.

Saturday
Wake up late with a hangover, and have an early lunch in Rangali Bar. The weather is rubbish - grey and damp. We've got a scuba lesson booked - we're complete novices, so a bit apprehensive. This is only exacerbated by the DVD we're shown, which tells us if we hold our breath as we surface our lungs will explode like a popped balloon. The DVD is dreadful, with captions like "FACT: scuba divers are more fun than regular people", followed by shots of scuba divers 'dancing' underwater. FACT: according to this video, scuba divers are a bunch of wankers.

Squeezing ourselves into wetsuits, we head to the beach and go under. The current is so strong, thanks to the stormy weather, that it's hard to stay in one place, and the instructor has to keep grabbing us by the scruffs of our necks and dumping us down where he wants us! We go through various exercises - what to do if you lose your regulator, what to do if your 'buddy' needs your air - which unfortunately goes horribly wrong during the 'expelling water from your mask by blowing air out of your nose' exercise, as I manage to inhale rather than exhale, and get a shot of disgusting salty sea water up my nostrils. I try not to panic, but that feeling of not being able to breathe is a bit scary, and eventually the instructor realises I'm not happy and takes me up to the surface to get my breath back.

We head to the Sunset Grill for dinner. We can't actually see the sunset thanks to the cloud, but the food is great. Despite the fact it's a seafood and grill restaurant, there's a whole page of veggie and vegan food on the menu. Top marks. Get back to find tonight's toy is a fish. This does not provoke any feelings of guilt in Steve at his large fish supper.

Sunday
Have a lazy morning snorkelling on the house reef - feck me, there's a huge range of beautiful fish out there, none of whom seem at all bothered by our presence. They're the most amazing range of colours. Some of my favourites are tubular, and seem to drift across the bottom in groups rather than putting any effort into darting about like the angel fish and gobis.

Our spa treatment today is basically a private sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. We're unsure of exactly how private it is until we see the open air loo! Dinner is at Vilu, an Italian place on the other island. We watch lightning play on the horizon. On the walk back we look under the bridge. We can see large blue fish jumping for the insects attracted to the lights on the struts. Then a manta ray rises up out of the darkness, five foot wide from wing tip to wing tip, skimming open-mouthed along the surface of the water, showing us his gilled white underbelly. It's impressive to say the least, but does make me resolve not to try night-time snorkelling.

Monday
We've booked a highly recommended excursion called "Dream Island", where you and your lovely partner are taken by speedboat to a deserted island and left for the morning with some food and a parasol. Despite raining during the night the trip's still on, and we excitedly head to the jetty. The ride to the island is nice, but when we arrive I'm quite shocked by the amount of litter there - not just water bottles, but aerosols, a water pistols, a petrol drum! We try to relax on the beach, but are attacked by loads of mossies (not a problem on the main island, as it's regularly treated with mosquito-killing chemicals - nice!), and unfortunately the insect repellent provided by the hotel consists of a quarter tube of cream - not enough for one person, let alone two who'd like to reapply after swimming! The best thing about the excursion comes as I'm heading back to the beach from the sea, and hear Steve yelling behind me. I turn round in time to see a school of flying fish leaping in and out of the ocean, gleaming silver in the sunlight and only a few feet from my boyfriend.

Have a light lunch and a dip in the infinity pool before heading to the spa for our 'body quench' treatment, which involves being covered in hot oils then wrapped in steaming towels. Lovely. On the way back to the villa I spot something in the water. "What's that?!" I say, pointing it out to Steve. "What, that big black rock?" he replies sarkily. It's turn out to be a ray. We chase it (not that it realises this) down the walkway and manage to get back to our villa's sundeck in time to see it drift past. I try and persuade Steve to dive in and keep it company, but he seems strangely reluctant.

Dinner that night is in the Mandhoo Spa restaurant, which is a bit disappointing from a vegetarian point of view - a healthy, organic restaurant with only one of two non-meat/fish options? Weird.

Tuesday
Breakfast is followed by a hot stone massage in the spa. The masseuses seem a bit surprised by the huge red mosquito bites covering my body, and I explain I got them on another island. Steve has, as usual, escaped without being bitten. I hate him. The best bit of the massage is the salt exfoliation, as feels amazing on my itchy bites! The massage itself at one point does feel as if the masseuse is trying to dislocate my shoulder. Next time I'm putting down "light" as my favoured massage level!

We go to the famous Ithaa underwater restaurant for mid-morning cocktails. It's set about twenty feet under the sea, by the coral reef. We sip champagne and watch the fish through the transparent walls and ceiling.

In the afternoon we go on another excursion - this time a "snorkelling safari" to the coral reef on another island. The reef is huge, like another world, and is covered in all different sorts of coral, anemones and clams. It's very choppy on the boat on the way back, a bit like being in a washing machine, and one poor chap looks like he's about to lose his lunch.

That evening we're booked in for a cheese fondue dinner at the wine bar. It's yummy, and we're relieved when it turns out our huge pot of cheese is not just the first course but the whole meal. We chat to another couple from the UK; she refuses to snorkel, whereas he won't try out the spa. It makes me glad me and the boyfriend are willing to try out new activities - I certainly wouldn't have tried scuba if he hadn't been keen, and I couldn't imagine he would have headed to the spa if he'd been here on his own. They're very friendly and funny though, so we have a good laugh before saying good night. The toy that night turns out to be a manta ray, entertainingly. Not something you'd normally think of putting in soft toy format...

Wednesday
Our last full day. We wake up early and sit on the sundeck, looking at the fresh morning sky. Two crabs on our deck steps keep up company. Have what is essentially a full English brekkie at Vilu restaurant before heading to the Overwater Spa for our two hour 'Tempt' massage, with coffee and vanilla scented oils. This spa, on the other, smaller island, has glass floors so you can watch the fish from your massage beds. Get so engrossed in watching one particular fish who likes hiding under the sand and shooting out in a grump at any other fish that come near his lair that I don't want to turn over when my back's done.

We set up shop on the beach and do some more snorkelling. Spot a sea slug, and also the infamous titan triggerfish, which is pretty large and will attack during this period as it's protecting its eggs. We decide to try out waterskiing, and while I seem to be on the verge of getting the hang of it, the amount of sea water that you inhale every time you get it wrong means we give up after thirty minutes of ingesting more plankton that your average ray. We have another go on the jetski instead. Back in the villa, we try out the massive bath, which takes 40 mins to fill. With tea lights all around it, it's very romantic.

Have a dinner in Atoll Market, which like most of the restaurants on the island is outdoors and candlelit. "Ooh, look at this cute bug," I say to Steve, pointing to a beetle that's investigating one of our chairs. Then, seeing it more clearly: "Actually, that'a cockroach. Let's skip dessert." The complementary toy that night is a clown fish, with cute little orange Lesley Ash lips.

Thursday
Up at 5.45am - groan. One last look at the beautiful island then it's time to leave. England seems particularly grey and rainy on our return. Thank God for the bank holiday weekend.

Jordanian Rocks and Egyptian Balloons

2008-01-25T08:45:00.001Z

Wow, what a great holiday. At the risk of making you all crazy with jealousy, I've never seen so many beautiful things in such a short space of time.

Despite an initial hiccup (my poor sister-in-law brought her old passport by accident, so she had a joyous trip to Heathrow, then to Aqaba, where she had a three hour taxi journey to reach our hotel - we'd spent most of this time chilling out in the hotel bar!), Jordan was amazing.

Petra is an ancient city carved from the rock of the mountains by the Nabuteans (you know, those guys from Amidala's home planet). The most famous building is known as the Treasury, because it was rumoured the stone urns held pieces of gold (they didn't).

It's a 6KM walk to the foot of the mountains, at the top of which is a monastery, also carved from the rock. We bravely elected to climb the 800 steps up the mountain, although my Dad cheated and took a donkey. The views were stunning, though the fact we couldn't walk for the next five days was an unfortunate side effect.

The next day's trip was a jeep excursion through the desert of Wadi Rum, where Lawrence of Arabia liked to hang out. It was effing FREEZING on the back of that jeep - one member of the group decided she was coming down with hypothermia, the drama queen. I nearly threw up my humous and tabbouleh lunch in my Dad's lap what with all the bumping around. We explored a cool crevice in the rock where the Bedouin used to hang out when it all got a bit windy outside (most meals in Jordan are bean-based), but I don't think any of us were as excited as the tour guide trainee, who leapt about on the rock face gabbling away on his mobile phone with very little thought for health and safety. Finally we sat on the top of a rock formation and watched the sun set over the desert.

After a seriously long coach trip we were in Egypt, enjoying a whistlestop tour of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (had a weird deja vu moment when I spotted a piece known as the "cow bed" that was incredibly familiar to me from one of my favourite childhood books on famous mysteries from around the world), lunch on a boat on the Nile (which is oddly similar to being on a boat on the Thames to be honest - kept expecting to see the London Eye), then to the pyramids and the Sphinx.

On our last morning we woke up at 4.30am to make it to the west bank of the Nile for a hot air balloon ride as the sun rose. The occasional blasts of flame made each balloon glow for a moment in the darkness, like huge, fat fireflies.

Our last day was spent in Luxor, visiting the Temples of Luxor, Karnak and Hatshepsut. The former we had the luck of seeing at dusk; it's so much more atmospheric at night, when the beautiful stone statues turn gold in the spotlights.

And now I'm back, with just fab memories of amazing sights and good times with my lovely family, and a huge inbox of poxy emails to get through!

Writing news next time, promise. xxx

Who would win in a fight: giant snails or crocodiles?

2008-01-07T16:12:00.000Z

Happy New Year!

Yes, hard to believe, but Christmas is already over, we're back at work, the skies are grey, it's getting dark at 4pm, and there's months to go before the next bank holiday. Urgh.

Things to be happy about:
1) Looks like we've got a pretty good chance of a Democrat in the White House next election (to paraphrase Chris Rock, Dubya did such a bad job that there's no way a white guy can get elected).
2) Big Brother is back (yes, I admit it, I'm a fan), and it actually makes a difference watching ten very talented young men and women (those circus act kids are incredible) rather than a bunch of celebrity-hungry wannabes.
3) That's it.

Actually, I do have something to look forward to - a family trip to Egypt in a week or so. It's going to be magic: pyramids, a boat along the Nile, a visit to Petra. I've been told I need to beware the giant snails, but my Dad reckons the crocodiles have got a taste for tourist flesh, and given the choice between outrunning a croc and a snail, I prefer my odds with the snail.

Couple of book recommendations:
- Deeper, by Jeff Long; a sequel to The Descent, which is one of the best books I've read, about the discovery of a literal, subterranean Hell. It bears no relation to the film of the same name. The Descent has one of the creepiest, scariest opening chapters ever, but then becomes a great novel about humanity's limits.
- The Ruins, by Scott Smith, about some holidaying college grads in Mexico who go on a day trip to some ruins they've heard about, and end up in deep shit. It's a potboiler, but then I love potboilers. Very hard to put down, and the characters ring true throughout. Apparently they're making it into a film, but since they've apparently changed at least two characters' fates, you wonder why they don't just write summat from scratch. Speaking of which, I saw I Am Legend over Xmas, and then read the book. Apart from the central concept (lone bloke, lots of nasty creatures), the only thing they have in common is that the lone bloke is called Robert Neville. Needless to say, the book's ending is much more effective than the film's. Cute dog though.

And speaking of cute dogs, I'll sign off with a pic of my brother's dog, who is sulking because we made him wear antlers and a velvety fur collar.

Picture a pancake waddling down Oxford Street...

2007-11-26T17:19:00.001Z

So I spent the weekend in London, bravely Christmas shopping. Some of you may scoff at the idea of doing your shopping in November; some of you may be wondering why the hell I left it so late. Considering I was squashed as flat as a pancake by the crowds at Oxford Circus, I think I'd agree with the second group. You have to be rather assertive (Londoner-speak for rude) - I got trapped behind one girl who stood there squeaking, Harrods bags raised plaintively in the air, waiting for the hordes coming in the other direction to part and let her through. "'Scuse me!" shouted one local, overtaking us both and moving through the crowd in a way that was strangely reminiscent of American football player William "The Fridge" Perry.

I've had to put down novel number two over the last couple of weeks and focus again on Twisted Wing, taking care of the dreaded rewrites for the final draft. A lot of the first section's ended up in the writing profession's equivalent of the cutting room floor (I've just pictured a limbo land where edited-out words float around - sounds like a Stephen King story), and hopefully what it's been replaced with is much tighter and will do a better job of grabbing the reader's attention. Decapitations and disembowellments still intact, however.

2007-10-16T17:27:00.001+01:00

Thought some of you writers out there might be interested in Channel 4's new competition, PILOT - but hurry, you've only got about a month to get your work in!

PILOT is an opportunity for drama screenwriters to win the chance to have their work produced and screened on Channel 4.

We're inviting exciting, talented writers to submit a treatment for a six-part drama series, an outline for a pilot episode for that series, and a script for a sample scene from that episode.

12 writers will be selected to take part in a packed weekend of industry workshops and masterclasses. They will then be hot-housed in one of three Scottish independent production companies, where mentoring producers and Channel 4 script editors will help them develop their series idea and complete a first draft script. After eight weeks of paid training, each writer will pitch to a selection panel. Only one idea from each production team will be selected. These three writers, along with their producers, will hotfoot it down to Channel 4's HQ in London to pitch to 4Talent and the Channel's Commissioning Editor for Drama, Sophie Gardiner.

One creative team will head home with a £90,000 commission to produce a pilot episode of their drama series, including a fee for the winning writer to complete a final draft script.

Find out more on the Channel 4 website »

2007-10-15T08:54:00.000+01:00

It's been an eventful couple of weekends. A week ago I went with a few friends to Thorpe Park, to partake of their lovely rollercoasters, though I did get a bit stroppy when we didn't go on the biggest, scariest one straightaway. I can highly recommend both "Colossus" and "Nemesis", but the best by far was "Stealth", which is 205 ft high and accelerates from 0 to 80mph in 2.3 seconds. You can see for yourself what it's like, here:

There are cameras on each ride to take your pic at the scariest moment. On each of mine my friend Tom is grinning like an idiot whilst I look like someone's stabbing me in the eye with a pencil.

We'd been very sensible and brought a change of clothes, which was good because we got absolutely DRENCHED on "Tidal Wave" (do you think anyone ever regrets these names after various disasters?), which is basically like having God tip a bucket of water over you. It runs down your cleavage, so you lean forward and it runs down the back of your pants. There's a photo of us afterwards looking like drowned rats.

This weekend I was at my Dad's for his 61st birthday, along with my brother and his wife. We spent the day in Kew Gardens, which is just starting to turn autumnal. The trees were beautiful, but I think we enjoyed their aquarium most of all. My brother was most taken with a hermit crab that seemed determined to communicate with him, and my sister-in-law fell for a puffer fish that hid in a swirl of coral and gazed out at us shyly. Well, there's some anthromorphism going on there. Given that puffer fish are one of the deadliest species in the ocean, he was probably thinking how easily he could kill us if he could just get out of this damn tank. Dad then insisted on heading back to watch the rugby, so we got out his game of Trivial Pursuit that he bought back in the 80s, which has a lot of questions about Daley Thompson and Bucks Fizz. We didn't get out for his birthday meal till around half ten, at which point I picked their brains for what makes a good chase story and ate too much tiramisu.

What do you think are the elements of a successful chase scene/story? Comments please!

Help! Now I'm published, what are my tax liabilities?

2007-10-04T18:19:00.000+01:00

One thing you realise when you finally manage to get something published is that there's a huge wealth of material out there about how to write, how to find an agent, etc., and very little about what to do after you get published!

For example, I found it very hard to find much information about my tax situation - and let's face it, it's not like the Inland Revenue takes "I'm sorry, I didn't know" as a reasonable excuse for tax evasion. So here's a hopefully helpful guide to your tax liability as an author. It's just a guide based on my own personal experience, and my number 1 tip is to get an accountant, as I'm no expert and wouldn't want anyone relying on this as a definitive "this will cover all bases" instruction manual.

Income Tax
Firstly, basic income tax. You'll probably already have a job, and probably will want to hang onto it (hardly anyone makes a living out of writing, published or not). This will probably mean that you're already paying tax at 22%. The current point at which you start paying tax at the 40% rate is £34,600. So say your regular job pays you £25,000, and you're earning £100,000 (let's go crazy) from your book deal.

For starters, discount the 10% or whatever fee your agent is taking - this is tax deductible. So after fees, you've got £90K. There's £9,600 left in your 22% tax band (i.e. £34,600 minus £25,000). That equals £2,112 tax.

So once you've deducted the £9,600 that you pay at the lower tax rate from your £90,000, you're left with £80,400. This gets paid at the 40% tax rate, which equals tax of £32,160.

Your taxable total is therefore £34,272. Now, my accountant tells me that not only do you need to pay for this tax year, you also have to prepay 50% of your tax liability towards next year's tax bill. So don't just put aside £34,272 - err on the side of caution and put aside £51,408. If you don't make any money in the next tax year, you can always claim it back. (Note: authors can also benefit from averaging their income over two years, which means that if you earn a smaller amount than we're using in this example that you might be able to get all your book deal money taxed at 22% instead of just some of it; it may also have benefits in terms of this "paying half in advance" lark, in that you wouldn't be having to put aside so much money).

Income tax total = £51,408

National Insurance Contributions
So now we move onto self-employment. The minute you discover you're getting published, you're effectively self-employed and need to register as such. You can do this online - there's a useful guide to the process on the Business Link website. As a self-employed person, you will need to pay both Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance contributions. Class 2 contributions are currently £2.20 a week, which you will generally pay monthly by direct debit. (£2.20 x 52 weeks = £114.40).

Class 4 contributions are currently charged at 8% of profits between £5,225 and £34,840. If you're also employed, then you're probably already paying Class 1 contributions, and these count towards this upper limit of £34,840. In our example, you're earning a work salary of £25,000, so you will actually only need to pay 8% on the difference between £25,000 and £34,840 (i.e. 8% of £9,840, which is £787.20). (This involves applying for a deferment of Class 4 contributions, i.e. showing that you're already paying a lot via Class 1 contributions). Any profit after that upper limit of £34,840 involves paying Class 4 contributions at a rate of 1% (in our example, this is £90,000 minus £34,840, i.e. £55,160, of which 1% is £551.60).

Total NI contributions = £1,453.20

Total after tax/NI = £35,725, or £52,861 if including tax pre-payment for the following year

Which leaves you, after that lovely £100K has had tax, agent's fees and NI contributions deducted from it, with a slightly less impressive £37,139 that's yours to spend on whatever your little heart desires.

Other things to remember, such as ...

VAT
You also need to remember VAT registration, which again you can do online, or via a downloadable form. It basically involves charging publishers your advance plus 8%. You then need to give the 8% to Customs & Excise. The publishers can then claim it back. Crazy, eh? (n.b. even if most of your book advance comes from abroad, you should still register, even though you won't be charging these foreign publishers VAT). The benefit to you of registering for VAT (weighed against the downside of working out how much more to charge your publishers - though if you've got an agent they should be able to help with this), is that you can claim back VAT on various expenses. Which brings us to...

Tax deductibles
Keep a spreadsheet with details of all the things you buy in the course of your writing career that you think you might be able to claim back for (as well as receipts of course). These expenses can be things like laptops, stationery, travel (to meet with your publisher, your agent, going to book signings, etc.), research (though any trips to the Bahamas to research a setting for your new novel will have to include lots of evidence of you actually doing research - and probably evidence that you were there on your own and not with your love bunny), phone calls (to publishers, etc.), electricity (to heat your office and power up your laptop) and so on. All the expenses should, when all's said and done, be up to 48% cheaper to you than to some who's not paying 40% income tax and VAT.

Fines for late registration
Self-employment registration: You need to register as self-employed within three months of first being told by a publisher that they were going to publish your book.

VAT registration: You'll be fined by HM Revenue & Customs if you don't alert them to the fact you believe your turnover will exceed £64,000 within the next 30 days (or, if your advances from book deals are more gradual, that you've hit a turnover of £64K or over). They count this date from when you first heard what your advance would be.

Business bank accounts
Apparently banks can get shirty if they realise you're using your current account to store your business profits, so it's best to set up an account purely for your profits (and then any writing-related purchases can come out of it, as can NI contributions, etc.) Few banks offer free banking services for business, and those that do seem to only offer this for the first year. Abbey National was one I found that doesn't charge you for its services so long as you stay within certain limits (e.g. only cashing X amount of cheques a month), which should be fine for almost any writer.

Well I hope this helps someone out there. Feel free to post any questions, or correct my maths! (And if anyone can spot an error that will increase my net profit, there's a Creme Egg in it for 'em).

Under construction by Polish builders

2007-09-25T12:27:00.000+01:00

For some reason I thought the publishers wrote the blurb that goes on the back of the book (you know the kind of thing: "Jack Devlin is a maverick cop who treats his suspects tough and his women tougher. Yet he finds himself thrown off-kilter by the edgy beauty of Rachel Gold, the only surviving victim of serial killer The Slice'n'Dicer. As he tries to keep her safe on the mean streets of San Francisco, he finds his life in danger from the psycho and his heart in danger from her.") Turns out it's the author's responsibility. Cue panic!

My reaction to this was to email lots of lovely friends with a choice of four blurbs that mention Cambridge, blood'n'guts and psychopaths to varying degrees. I've already got some very useful feedback, which just leaves me with the author bio. This may be even more difficult. My publisher, Susan, sent me an amusing example of what not to write - "Ruth Newman was born. She's pretty happy about that. She has a Mum and Dad who were too. Nowadays she lives in Cambridge NOT in Ariel College, with her cat Olivia and her boyfriend Zane, who is pretty cool about her being a published author. She likes swordfish, tuna melt and takes her coffee neat. Her website is under construction by Polish Builders." Ignoring how Susan knows I take my coffee neat and have a boyfriend called Zane, I think this is a good example of my natural instinct to take the piss, but I've managed to limit myself to one silly line in an otherwise sensible bio...

In other news, around 150 students arrived at the department last week and the mad rush of work began. Luckily they seem like a really lovely bunch - I've been reading their profiles as I've been shifting them from one online community to another, and they come across as funny, talented and sweet. Maybe I should get them to write my author bio for me!

Adventures in Morocco

2007-08-30T10:20:00.000+01:00

Sorry no posts for a while - work's been incredibly busy, and me and pater have just got back from five days in Marrakech. What a place - about the most hectic, hot and colourful city I've ever been to. We were staying at a fab hotel (Les Borjs de la Kasbah, highly recommended) in the kasbah, which is the residential bit of Marrakech. Most hotels are in the new bit, which is basically just sand, palm trees, and other hotels. There's a lot of development going on here, so I guess the country's doing well in terms of tourism. They're expanding the airport too, and the posters they had up to promote this were absolutely hilarious - but more of that later.

Walking through the kasbah involves getting approached by random people who either want to a) guide you somewhere (often somewhere you don't want to go) or b) recommend a shop (which they either own or get commission from). The key is to say "no thank you" in a very smiley, polite way. Sometimes you trust them despite yourself, and end up in a carpet shop. This is where I bought a lovely handmade rug (dyed with poppy petals, apparently) for £80, having bartered the guy down from £240. The other guys in the shop thought Dad was my husband, and clapped him on the back to congratulate him on choosing a wife who was so tight with the pursestrings ("you will have a good life with this woman").

My bartering skills were otherwise pretty rubbish (when your host's shop is basically a cupboard on the street, you feel really stingey trying to save £10 when that's not really a lot of money to you, but might be to them) - if I'd pay that much in the UK for something made in a factory, I'd happily pay the same for a handmade version. Feeling like a rich Westerner was not a very pleasant experience though.

To get to Jemaa el Fna, the main square, we would walk through the winding streets of the local market, pungent with the aroma of mint, cooking meat, smoke and coriander. Some women sold nothing but mint, sitting on the street with a tea towel full of leaves. The butchers were a bit much for a vegetarian girl like me - unidentifiable skinned animals with their tails still attached swing in your face as you walk past, alongside rows of dried and dessicated animal heads.

The souks were more appealing, full of gaudy mirrors and delicately patterned metal lamps, and reams and reams of shocking pink, turquoise and purple fabric. The main square itself really comes alive at night, when it's packed with food stalls, orange juice sellers, snake charmers and storytellers, and smoke billows up into the sky.

Back at the airport, suffering from a joyous bout of food poisoning, I entertained myself by playing "recognise the celeb" on the posters promoting the new terminal. Someone's obviously had fun with a few copies of Heat and Photoshop - I'm not sure if the celebrities are actually famous in Morocco or not, but my guess is not!

Gwyneth Paltrow: "hey! I'm over here! just calling a cab."

Robert De Niro: "come with me, I know a great rug shop"

Katie Holmes: "Hey, isn't that Luke Wilson?"
Liz Hurley: "Hey, isn't that Katie Holmes?"

Genius.

Trick photography

2007-08-13T17:32:00.000+01:00

Another weekend, another (semi-)productive writing session. 2,000 words at a sitting seems to be about my average at the moment. I've just had my main character torture someone, and I have to say, I think I might need to read it back in the context of the story to make sure I haven't lost my audience! It might be different if the main character was a bloke, or an anti-hero, but it's a woman that ideally the reader should be empathising with, so she can't suddenly go all unsympathetic. We'll see - at least I didn't have her puncture someone's eyeball or anything too Dario Argento.

The lovely boyfriend and I watched Stranger Than Fiction on DVD. I highly recommend it. If you haven't seen it, it's like a Charlie Kaufman film but only 80% as weird. Will Ferrell is a tax auditor who starts to hear a woman's voice in his head, narrating his life story. He plays it dead straight, but because it's Will Ferrell it's very funny anyway. It got me thinking though: could you write a book about the process of making a film? And the answer's got to be no, at least in the same way that this film is about the process of writing a book. Sometimes I think the movie makers are jammy - they've got the advantage of being able to use music to scare you or make you sad, or to use certain shots (like Michael Myers sitting up, or Carrie's hand thrusting out of the grave) to make you jump. I suppose as a book writer though, you have the very advantageous advantage of not needing a mega budget to blow up fifty Ferraris in a bizarre mineshaft explosion.

My favourite scene in Adaptation, which is a film written by Charlie Kaufman about a character called Charlie Kaufman who's hired to adapt a New Yorker magazine article about an orchid thief, is when his twin brother Donald tells him about the plot of his new script. There's a cop, a kidnap victim, and a serial killer. The twist is, all three are the same person, who has multiple personality disorder. Charlie points out the obvious problem with this scenario:

CHARLIE
The other thing is, there's no way to write this. Did you consider that? I mean, how exactly would you show a character holding himself hostage?

DONALD
Trick photography?

Genius.

Lunar landing pod spiders

2007-08-06T14:20:00.000+01:00

As promised by the BBC weather forecast, we woke up to a cobalt blue sky on Saturday. There's no shade in our garden till around 4pm, so I recently bought a set of garden furniture so I could write outdoors without so much glare bouncing off the laptop screen that I was blinded. Last time I opened up the parasol there was a little spider skeleton in it, so - being a complete arachnophobe - I thought I'd better check before I spread it open over my head.

Inside it were three of the biggest f*cking spiders I have ever seen. One of them had little pads on the end of his legs, like some kind of NASA landing craft. I shrieked and chucked the parasol onto the lawn, at which point the laundry-laden washing line snapped. Holding the end of it up so our clothes didn't get wiped all over the patio, I yelled for the lovely boyfriend. The poor thing was Cuprinol-ing the reverse side of the garden fence (such a picture of domestic bliss I'm painting here), and came running round to help. We sorted out the laundry, then I hid in the living room and watched through the patio doors whilst the brave lad (in a large pair of gardening gloves) deported the giant spiders out of the parasol and onto the lawn. The third spider turned out to be a skeleton/shed skin thing.

I was left with many questions. Were the two spiders lovers, or family? Do spiders happily co-exist in each other's territory, or are there turf wars? What had prompted the spiders to leave their little den in the corner of the garage, near the garage door where the flies come in, and travel up into my parasol? Did they think they were going on holiday? Were they hoping they could fulfil their evil spider destinies by dive bombing me while I sat under the parasol that I thought would protect me (at least from the sun)? Had the lovely boyfriend found all of them, or was there one that had mastered the art of camouflage, and was sitting there still, white and blue striped, lurking?

I sat down to do some writing, jumping out of my skin every time a thunderbug tickled my skin, or a dandelion fluff ball brushed my arm, shooting wary glances up at the parasol every few minutes.

It was a productive weekend though - got about 8,000 words done, which brings my total to 50,000, or round about half of a pretty standard-length novel. Only another 50,000 to go!

A sunny weekend ahead

2007-08-03T17:07:00.000+01:00

Finished off Harry Potter (the book, not the wizard - don't blame me!) on Sunday afternoon. What a great ending! J.K.'s so talented at writing extended climaxes (ooer missus), unlike say Patricia Cornwell, whose recent Scarpetta books seem to end pretty abruptly over only two pages. The parents went for a nap and I desperately speedread in their absence in the hope I'd finish it before they resurfaced and distracted me with offers of cups of coffee and lyric-murdering singing, but alas I was too slow. I tried using the universal "talk to the hand" sign to alert them to my disinterest in their witterings, but had to resort to locking myself in my bedroom so I could get teary-eyed and lumpy-throated in peace.

On Monday my stepdad hired a van and we ferried a great big piece of furniture over to his place in Tottenham. A spare tyre in the back of the van tried to break through the thin piece of plyboard protecting the passengers and decapitate myself and my mother, like some death scene in Final Destination. Once at his house we had to get the piece of furniture up the stairs, which involved lots of sweat and swearing, and another near-death experience as I narrowly avoided plummeting down the staircase followed by a huge wardrobe intent on crushing me.

I met my agent V for lunch, who brought along agent G (who looks after foreign rights) and agent S (who sells film and/or television rights). They were all uniformly lovely, and great company. G and I had Bellinis followed by wine, and I ended up a bit squiffy. I'm such a lightweight (despite my recent brave attempts to increase my tolerance levels by drinking massive amounts of champagne). We chatted about our favourite books, and I learnt some good tips on how not to impress an agent - that's the last time I handwrite a novel on Basildon Bond stationery in my own blood, I can tell you.

Back to Cambridge and the lovely boyfriend after that, and then work on Tuesday. I'm employed by one of the University departments, and this is the time of year when all the students have finished and all the faculty are ~~bunking off~~ working from home on important research. It's like a ghost town in here and has been all week. Colleague Tim has become my tax advisor and we work out how much of my new income is going to be taxed. I'm happy paying tax, being a big believer in the welfare state, but the leap from 22 to 40% is a bit of shock, having never earnt in that tax bracket before! There are worse positions to be in though, I'm well aware. Having pushed thoughts of a Cayman Islands account to the back of my mind, I'm now trying to decide which is a more attractive proposition: paying a lump sum off the mortgage or buggering off to the Maldives for the rest of the summer.

At least the sun has finally arrived in East Anglia. I think I'll get the garden furniture out and spend the weekend writing book no.2 in the sunshine. It's a hard life...

Mole sauce

2007-07-30T10:25:00.000+01:00

Spent a great afternoon with some old school friends at a cafe in Newington Green ("That Place on the Corner" - a kid-friendly cafe - we had a seven year old, a two year old and a four month old with us!) Some of us kept in touch during university and afterwards, but we only got together as a group a couple of years back. I don't think any of us have changed much (apart from Adi, who is about 500% more glamorous!), but one of us is a mum now, one is a lawyer, one is doing medical training, and the other is personal assistant to a very famous architect.

We caught up with news of early stage pregnancies, upcoming trials (the lawyer is involved in the prosecution of those guys last year who wanted to blow up planes using liquid explosives, i.e. the reason why you can't have contact lens solution in your cabin luggage anymore, the bastards) and forthcoming books. They were genuinely excited for me, having spent many hours in the common room at school being ignored by me as I wrote stories about serial killers. Nothing ever changes, hey?

We went to Clissold Park in Stokey N. afterwards, played on the swings (I wanted to go down the fireman's pole, but adults were selfishly banned from using the equipment) and ate ice cream. Then it was just me and Mandy left, and we sat in my Mum's back garden drinking fizzy pink wine and stuffing our faces with chocolate-covered florentines.

To celebrate Twisted Wing being accepted for publication, I took the oldsters to our local Mexican restaurant for dinner. It's painted in bright colours and fairy lights are strewn around mirrors and windows - very atmospheric. I had enchiladas covered in mole poblano sauce, which luckily isn't made out of moles but chocolate and spices. Quite hot, but very tasty. We polished off another bottle of bubbly too. My poor liver.

Blind Light

2007-07-28T11:00:00.000+01:00

I'm spending the weekend in London, which is great as it means I get to combine a visit to my Mum's with seeing some old friends from school and meeting my new agent for lunch.

I recently went to Venice, and whilst there saw a fab lampshade at a stall. It was quite sixties looking, like a giant white globe made of petals, and I thought Mum would love it. I should have realised, but when they handed over a flat pack I was too dumb to guess that that's exactly what it was - a flatpacked lampshade that I would have to construct myself. That's why I spent the first hour of my evening at Mum's - a woman I haven't seen since March - painstakingly weaving thirty bloody bits of identical plastic into an approximation of the shape I'd seen in Italy. The instructions were in Italian, with a handy English translation on the back - sample instruction: "when fissing the lost pieces, make sure leaf gap for light cord". Thanks for the help, manual guys.

My stepdad came over on the Friday and we had a great day in central London. First on our itinerary was a visit to the latest Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. If you live in London you might have seen the lifesize figures dotted on the skyline on various buildings around the South Bank. Watchers or invaders? Guardian angels or Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still?

Inside, the most interactive part of the exhibition was his "Blind Light" creation - an 8x10m glass box full of mist illuminated by a bright white light. 25 people only are allowed in at a time. It's a completely disorienting experience - once you're in there, you can only see a couple of feet in front of you. I couldn't see past my waist. People suddenly loom out at you from the fog. Sometimes you hear a familiar voice and realise you're only a couple of steps from your own mother, but just can't see her. The kids there loved it, and every so often you'd hear "bang - ow!" as one of them ran into a wall. I found myself rooted to the spot, unwilling to venture a step in any direction in case I walked into someone. When you're in there it's a bit like a Tardis - from the outside you know it's a finite box, but on the inside you could be in the middle of an icy tundra. Very useful stuff if you're a writer - one of those experiences you make a mental note of, just in case one of your characters is ever caught in one of those notorious Antarctic glowing fog scenarios.

After the exhibition we grabbed a sandwich and ate it in a nice park near the river with a jazz band, and "keep off the grass" signs which kept the emerald lawn was pristine and empty, and forced all the office workers to jam themselves into the side bits of grass, with the pigeon poo and the snoring Special Brew guy.

Going to see each Harry Potter as it comes out is a bit of a family tradition, and Order of the Phoenix was on at the Odeon on Tottenham Court Road. With each film the reviews say "darker and more grown-up than the last one", and it's really true of this latest. The whimsy and light-hearted elements have gone completely out the window. Having read the book, which is extremely long, watching the film was a bit like seeing snapshots of the whole plot, but the oldsters seem to know what was going on, and they just watch the films (as the lights dimmed before Chamber of Secrets started, I suddenly remembered - and whispered a warning to my folks - "this is the one with the giant spiders". They thought I meant 'this is the cinema with the giant spiders', and sat there shitting themselves until the spiders appeared in the movie and the idiots realised what I'd meant - as if I'd go anywhere near a place famed for its huge spiders!)

Bought the last Harry Potter book afterwards, which I've already nearly finished. Pretty high body count so far - I'm impressed.

Retouching

2007-07-26T08:58:00.000+01:00

Just reading about some controversy in America about celebs getting airbrushed. Just go to this site - www.iwanexstudio.com - and take a look at the "Portfolio" section. Click on a celeb's pic to see the before and after versions. So scary! No wonder so much of the population suffers from low self esteem when it comes to their appearance. I used to feel sorry for actresses who were papped with cellulite and rolls of tummy fat - well, no more.

Celebratory lunch

2007-07-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

Went for lunch today with some friends to celebrate getting Twisted Wing published. We had some champagne in the office first (from plastic cups - classy), and then wine in the restaurant, so I was a bit squiffy. I have a tendency to go pink when I've been drinking - thank God this wasn't something my Mum realised during my teenage years - and my friend Tim had to waft me with a menu.

Had a great time, and staggered back to work. Friend and colleague Tracey was somewhat perturbed to discover my first appointment after lunch was to learn how to edit file permissions on the web server - think she had visions of me drunkenly whacking away at the keyboard and deleting our website, but I'm a girl who can handle her liquor. Hic!

Really looking forward to the weekend - I'm going back to London to meet up with some old school friends that I've known for about twenty years now (they haven't heard the news - I'm saving it for when I see them!), so I'll get to see my mum and stepdad too, which I'm v. excited about. We'll have the traditional family outing to see the latest Harry Potter films. (I haven't read the last one yet, so I'm intently avoiding reviews because I have a feeling I'm going to get spoiled at some point). Then on Monday I'm going for lunch with the guys from the agency - really looking forward to meeting them in person. I think we'll be discussing what comes next. There's another serial killer novel that's already finished but needs a polish, or a thriller with 60,000 words left to write. Would be very happy to go ahead with either, so at the moment everything's tickety-boo, though I must admit at some point I'm sure a publisher will propose we develop a series of detective novels set in Cambridge (what the boyfriend - who shall be given the nickname of "Gurney" in order to protect his privacy - is already calling my "Inspector Gorse" series).

Roll on the weekend.

Developments

2007-07-23T17:31:00.000+01:00

It's strange being back at work, getting phone calls and emails from your agent. In fact, just using the phrase "my agent" is a bit weird - I keep thinking I'm going to end up saying things like "get your people to call my people, and we'll do lunch at Spago's". I think I may be turning into Ari "Hug it out bitch" Gold.

Twisted Wing has now sold in Germany and Holland, which is fantastic. I always thought our European cousins had taste. Apparently publishers in the US are a bit turned off by the violence, which some might find a bit ironic. I'm a bit torn in the 'violence in fiction' debate. On the one hand, why add more violence and horribleness to the world, even if just in fiction form? On the other hand we can't always write about happy fluffy things, and if you're writing about violence, you should at least be realistic. Serial killers tend to be sadistic, angry people - their method of killing is unlikely to be getting their kitten to lick you to death. (Although maybe I should suggest we run with that amendment and resubmit to the American market?)

I'm keeping the news hush-hush at the moment, which is driving my colleague T mad as she wants to run round the building with a megaphone. So far I've only told the friends that have either read the book, or that I've chatted to about writing in the past. It was great telling my mate Paul (who sent me the competition link in the first place) that I'd won - he went bright pink and had to sit down for a bit. People have been very generous, with bottles of champagne and bouquets of gorgeous roses and lilies appearing on my desk. At some point I'll be a bit more open about it, but when the most common reaction you get to the news is "hey, you'll be the next J.K. Rowling!", you feel that perhaps there are some expectation management issues to handle...

Back home

2007-07-11T18:04:00.000+01:00

Back in the UK now, and I've got a day at home before I have to go back to work. I get on the internet and read up on the Long Barn Books competition.

Helen Slavin's "The Extra Large Medium" won the competition in 2006, with Chris Ewan's "The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam" published this year (2007). I order them from Amazon - they both sound like my kind of book, which I take a good sign!

I read that Susan has decided that she won't be running the competition again next year - you can find out why in this post from her blog. It's a real shame, as there aren't many opportunities like this, but that's the kind of thing that happens when someone trying to do a good thing finds all they get is flak!

I have one of those crazy days where things seem to be happening very quickly, and by the end of the day I've not only got a publisher, I've got an agent, and a bloody good one too. I need to sort stuff out today, like unpacking and laundry, but am too busy skipping round the house like Fotherington-Thomas. It's time to ring my Dad, whose main response to the exciting news is just "bloody hell! bloody hell!" I think he's happy.

Twisted Wing

2007-07-10T19:34:00.000+01:00

I owe it all to my good friend Paul T. He sent me the link to the competition webpage when a mate of his told him that the deadline had been extended. Twisted Wing had been finished a few months back, and I was at the stage of writing synopses and drafting letters to agencies. It seemed like a great opportunity, and I sent it off with my fingers crossed.

I've been writing since I was a little kid. Short stories to start with, then the ideas for novels kicked in. Stephen King reckons you should write first thing in the morning, last thing at night; any chance you get. "Easy for you to say," I thought. "You're a multi-millionaire, mate." Then I read that before he sold Carrie he was working two jobs and writing at 3am before going to bed, and I felt bad.

I like to have at least a few hours free before I even sit down to my laptop, so I mainly write at weekends. Sometimes I'm lucky to get a thousand words out, but sometimes you have one of those magical days when it just rushes out of you and you find it hard to keep up with the words in your head. Writing the last two chapters of Twisted Wing was like that - I meant to shut down the computer at 7pm and have some dinner, but it was half eleven before I stopped typing!

Twisted Wing is set in Cambridge, where I live and where I went to Uni. I love Morse, but this isn't your standard police procedural - the story's mainly told from the point of view of the students who find themselves being picked off one by one. It's nice and violent too (I don't do genteel poisonings), though we're not in Bret Easton Ellis territory just yet! Here's the synopsis that was used in the Long Barn Books press release:

The claustrophobic environment of Ariel College, Cambridge has become the hunting ground of a serial killer.

For the students, a siege mentality has developed following weeks of media interest in "the Cambridge Butcher". College life has become not about surviving their exams, but about surviving full stop.

Forensic psychiatrist Matthew Denison is sure that his traumatised patient, student Olivia Corscadden, has the killer's identity locked up in her memory. That within the little clique she belonged to lurks someone with a grudge. Someone who thought: 'what's a little decapitation between friends?' And that someone is just getting started...

Oh. My. God.

2007-07-10T18:51:00.000+01:00

We get back to our hotel room on Thursday evening and I rest my weary touristed-out bones in a nice hot bath. The boyfriend takes a shower as I switch on the TV, and instead of CNN find I'm given a thrilling menu of choices other than telly. Opting for internet access over adult movies, I tell my newly clean boyf that 6 Euros for an hour's worth of browsing is good value for money and go straight for my inbox.

And there's the email from Susan Hill: "YOU HAVE WON". I nearly fall off of the hotel bed. I'm wearing just a big white towel and squeaking like an idiot. I must look like some kind of albino bat. The boyf scoots to the end of the bed to see what's got me in a flap, and gives me a big hug. "I think you deserve a Campari," Susan writes. "Or three," I write back, and ring my Mum. (I get home to discover that ten minute call cost 18 quid, but it was worth it). Mum immediately starts making mental lists of all the people she's gonna tell. At the end of the call I tell her "I bet when I said I had news, you thought I was going to say I was pregnant." "I would have been just as proud," she tells me. "Though it doesn't take as much skill." (She's obviously never attempted the 'broken ladder' position).

The rest of the holiday is a bit of a daze. It's strange that this big thing has happened, and so far only my Mum and my boyf know about it, but I don't want to tell people over the phone. That would just spoil the fun :-)

Shortlisted!

2007-07-04T15:18:00.000+01:00

So I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Rome - really just a few PCs in the back room of a Chinese laundrette - when I read the email from Susan Hill telling me I'd been shortlisted for the Long Barn Books first novel competition.

Most of you will know Susan Hill as an author - nearly everyone I've spoken to about the competition has been to see "The Woman In Black" or has read "I'm The King Of The Castle". I first saw the former, adapted from Susan's original novel, when I was at school. My Mum took me, and laughed when I nearly wet myself. It's one of the scariest experiences of my life, and I've been to Slough. Anyway, Susan and her husband set up a publishing company called Long Barn Books back in 1997, and started the first novel competition a few years ago. She didn't set it up to make money - most first novels apparently don't - but wanted to give unpublished authors a chance to break into a notoriously difficult industry.

I manage to draft a reply to Susan, though I'm completely thrown by the weird keyboard (what's the @ sign doing on the number 2 key?! where have the double quotes gone?!). The boyfriend and I pay the laundry guy a few Euros for the ten mins of web access, and then we're off to explore the Colosseum and the Forum, in a very good mood!