I’m so glad you’re here. I’m supposed to be writing a book, but the details have grown a bit fuzzy, and you’re so much more fun to spend time with. So, while I pretend I’m working, instead, I’ll write this little nonsense to you.
Quick recap. I’m about halfway through writing my third novel. If you felt a tinge of sympathy as you read that, thank you, because I feel as if I’ve been ‘about halfway’ through writing my third novel all year.

Okay, so maybe I took a few months out to enjoy the kind of heatwave the UK can usually only dream of, but still, I knew I had work to do. My characters are a great bunch of women with so much to confide, but as I near the final act, they’ve developed in ways which compromise their original plotlines. On the whole, that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make my responsibility to them or the reader any easier, or the ideas more forthcoming.

I know what I need is to spend time looking out from inside the novel. Instead, I’m ruminating into a notebook, writing verses. I’ve been writing and doodling-about with poetry, while I play around with potential plot ideas. Our writing nuggets seem to know exactly how to work themselves out, and mine buy time with a whole lot of rhyme. (Ta-Dah!)

The truth is, publishing each small verse revives my appetite for the feeling of completion I’m currently circling with my next book. In case you’re wondering, I think of them as mini-biographies. We’ve got a homage to Tyrion Lannister. My 2018 movie crush on Call Me By Your Name. The obligatory James Dean poem, among many others.

What I didn’t realize, until a few of you asked what my verses meant, is they’re my go-to writing prompt. Writing Prompts. The whole idea makes me uncomfortable. The literary terminology. A little formal? Academic? Slightly pretentious, maybe? Along with the kind of snobbishness which continues to blight hugely successful authors, as captured by the quite brilliant, Jane Green.

That’s not how I like to write. I mean, I’m mortified. So, next time I post a verse, (and I warn you, I’ve already got a couple racked up and ready), the game’s up. Have a guess who or what I might be writing about, by all means, I’d love that, but we both know what I should actually be working on. And, if not, my third book might be entitled: The Collected Poems of…