Anyway, I have put all this behind me now. Strictly professional. I have the book to hand, and I'm about to give you some excellent advice, in bite-size chunks, and really do please feel free not to buy the book, or, if you do, not to put an excellent review on Amazon.
Hilary Mantel wrote "Wolf Hall", I heard her say recently, because it was the book that didn't exist that she wanted to read. On a slightly less high-flown level, I wrote this book because it was the book that didn't exist that I needed to read.
In 2004, I was Published for the first time, which seemed like it ought to mean something, this being the pinnacle of my ambition. But I was isolated and confused. I was waiting for someone to sprinkle fairy dust on my life (as if I was a Pippa Middleton table setting) but there was no fairy dust in sight. I wanted to be a Writer, not just someone who was published by accident. I needed help.
And so a few years later, I set out to write a book that would offer the friendly guidance I hadn't had when I started, and which had taken me years to find. Which is why the book is about "being a writer" not "doing the writing".
Not because I don't care about writing myself - I care more about this than any other part of the Writing Life - but because I know from experience that finding your neutral space is easier if you aren't in a state of sheer, blind panic or the Pits of Despair, the habitat of all too many writers.
