The gorgeous new covers are nearly ready. Pink with silver and sparkles, lilacs, sunny yellows, lovely greens… I love them, clever art department people. They really are very special.

The other interesting thing this month (oh, apart from the emotional rollercoaster of selling my home…I am never, ever moving again, I swear, this is it. Carry me out of the new place in a box and that is final. Not leaving, not ever, never. The tragic thing: how beautiful my current home looked in the estate agents brochure, versus what a total call Anna Ryder-Richardson quick dump we’re moving into. But it’s bigger… one day it too will look like the beautiful flat we’ve slaved over…won’t it?!)

Anyway, the interesting writing thing that happened this month is I gave a talk to student writers at Strathclyde Uni. They were really sweet, they laughed at the stuff I read out (albeit quite quietly, more noisy guffawing would have been perfectly permissible) asked really heavy questions, like: ‘Do you feel you’re creating art or a product?’ Oh my GAWD.

And I got interviewed afterwards by someone who’d read loads of my work and was really charming. I did for once feel like a real writer, not a novice fraud.
I said the same thing I say to everyone who wants to write: keep reading and reading and keep writing. Everyone gets better with the practise. Do not be discouraged by the rejections. We all get them all the time. How many ideas for each new book do you think I have to pitch before the people in charge go, ‘Yup, that’s a good idea’? Answer: a lot.