In case any of my followers who aren’t on social media are interested, this week I had the pleasure of being Avril Joy’s guest in her Writers’ Rooms series and you can read the post here. If you’d like to see yours featured, Avril welcomes everybody and makes the very important point (I believe) that a writer is someone who writes whether or not they are published.
For those who’ve already read it, here’s a close-up of my desk. As you see, I use the latest technology to elevate my laptop (the heaviest and least portable ever, but with a pleasingly large screen) to the correct height. There’s some Paris related stuff, on topic for my latest manuscript, and lotions and potions – I am forever plastering myself with something or other, usually French. It’s been noted (thank you, Ben Blackman) that the inspirational mantra displayed here lacks a certain subtlety but as I have found, you don’t complete a novel in ten months flat sitting around waiting for muses to appear. The screensaver is of the California coast: my narrator grew up in the redwood country of northern California, an area that left a deep impression on me when I was there two years ago and one to which I often return in my mind. There’s one other thing in this picture that drives me on. In the middle section of the picture frame my husband put a note saying ‘RESERVED FOR PUBLISHED BOOK COVER’, which makes me want to cry the good kind of tears.
In a few days’ time the first of my volunteer Sofa-minders will be Danny Scheinmann, author of international bestseller RANDOM ACTS OF HEROIC LOVE, whose new novel THE HALF LIFE OF JOSHUA JONES is currently being crowdfunded on Unbound – that’s sure to be interesting. And over the coming weeks we’ll be hearing from writers Voula Grand and Antonia Honeywell whilst I concentrate on getting my Summer Reads 2015 selection together…
