The day of your novel’s paperback launch is a strange one, if only because it’s so very ordinary. Today I fed my children breakfast and drove them to school. I had my weekly game of squash. I went to the office and did lawyerly stuff. The only sign that something was a little different was the proliferation of congratulatory tweets …
What’s Important
I’ve spent the last two weeks without a computer. And I lived to tell the tale. One morning my cherished MacBook Pro would not wake up. I took it into the local Apple retailer and they confirmed that the hard drive had committed ritual hara-kiri the previous evening. Luckily all of my law firm documents and my novel-in-progress were backed …
Writer, C’est Moi. (Finally.)
An interesting thing happened the other day. The kids and I decided to take the puppy for a walk around our new neighborhood. Dog walking is an excellent way to meet new people – if you are accompanied by a cute dog and two (equally cute) small children, you are generally not considered too much of a threat, even if …
Back in the Saddle
Did ya miss me? It’s been an AGE since I wrote a post for this blog. 2012 has been, without question, the nuttiest year of my life, and it’s only the start of May. In the last four months I have: published a novel; gone on tour to promote said novel; become an American citizen; got divorced; bought a house. …
Mother’s Day, UK Edition
Today is Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom. Did I send my mother a card? Did I arrange for flowers to be delivered? Or chocolates? No, I didn’t. Sadder than that, my mother didn’t expect me to, either. In nine years of living here, I’m not sure I ever have managed such a simple thing. It’s not that I don’t …
Cry Me a River
Amazing the things you learn on twitter. I discovered a little while ago that a certain well-known book blogger, who lives and works in New York, decided only to read my book while she was at home. Apparently she was worried about crying while she read – and, as she put it: “There is nothing like crying on the subway …
What’s Important
So, finally. About seven years after I set out on this journey with Frederick and Jette Meisenheimer, their story is published today. Tonight I will stand up in front of a group of people at Barnes & Noble in Columbia, MO, and read from my finished book for the first time. It will be a sweet moment, I am sure, …
Countdown!
There’s so much going on at the moment that I often lose track of what day of the week it is. So this is a quick post to bring you up to date with a few snippets of news, then I’m off to spend the weekend doing legal work, catching up with the stuff that has been piling up, both …
Write, Erase, Repeat.
Since my recent post about my new Kindle, I have been thinking a lot about technology. On Saturday night the kids and I had a chew-and-view. We ate tortellini and watched Shrek the Third, renting the movie on my laptop from amazon instant play and having it transmitted to the TV. Who needs Netflix? I don’t even need to wait for …
Words of Wisdom from Ann Patchett
Last week a bought a Kindle. I know, I know. Now, I’ve been down this path before. I wrote here about my brief and unfulfilling flirtation with a Nook, and this post shows another problem with e-readers generally. I will never, ever stop buying books… but, well, let’s be honest – there’s a certain inevitability about it all, isn’t there? …