Here I am with my marvellously efficient tax system: Chuck everything into a box and sort it out later.

Well, it’s later.

Actually, I have ages until I have to do my taxes, but my accountant feels it would be best to do it as soon as possible. I’m due a refund this year – I’ll send three projects to my agent this year, but last year was a first-draft year.

That’s the way it is in the author business, feast or famine. Last year I made so much I had to sell my car and get a littler one to pay my taxes. I know I should have immediately put 20% of my authorial earnings in a savings account to allow for tax, but I’m afraid I’m not that grown up yet. I live in hope that someday I will be.

A month or so ago, I got some very healthy royalty cheques, mainly for translations and sales of Drawing Together. I immediately checked the tax date and sighed with relief to note it was past April the fifth. That’s something to worry about later, then, I thought, and put a note in my diary when to start worrying.

I quite like doing my taxes. I get to claim for all the books I’ve bought and all the movies I’ve seen. I get to claim for meals out with contacts and train tickets to London and postage. I get to claim for my writing room (and soon, my shed!). It’s lovely going through all the receipts and remembering going to see people, or remembering al the films and books, or all the groups for whom I’ve run workshops. It’s like keeping a diary.

Thank you for the cinema matinees, your Majesty. Now, if you’d just pay for the nachos and diet coke…