I have been enjoying my stint at Mslexia as a guest blogger. I’m there until the end of January so please come and visit! Here are my first three blogs with a short excerpt:

Into Thin Air “The nice blurb that Mslexia gave me regarding my guest blog says: ‘she’s on the home straight with her debut novel, and will be blogging for us about how she’s getting on…’ The home straight. To me it feels like I’m battling the final ascent of Mount Everest. Each morning I poke my head out of the tent and see the white sheet of snow and return, heavy with despair, to huddle in my sleeping bag. Some days I manage to lug myself up a few more feet, but other days I tumble back down, ending up lower on the slope than when I started….”

I’m (not) just the writer…. “The last two weeks on The Novel have been like munching on rusted bolts. I didn’t feel this would be very inspiring to write about, let alone read. So let me tell you about another of my displacement activities: I’ve just come back from Norwich, where I gave a reading for the launch of the Unthology No. 3, the third short story anthology released by Unthank Books, an independent Norwich-based publisher.”

Munching Bolts “I’ve been catching up on my Saturday Guardians and have just read the late David Foster Wallace’s piece on the agony and ecstasy of writing. It’s taken the wind out of my sails as this is the subject I planned to write about today (well, the agony part), but of course David Foster Wallace has managed not only to cover the full gamut of emotions involved but has made me re-experience them in Technicolor. All except for the ‘fun’ he assures us is possible.”