I’m writing a book that makes me laugh.

I’ve sent the first ten thousand words of my dying-in-a-car-crash rewrite off to Sophie. I’m waiting to see if she thinks I’ve got the narrative voice just right. So, in the meantime, I’m working on another book – a funny book.

I actually laugh out loud when I’m writing it. And giggle almost all the time. I’m writing it with my 11 year old daughter. We make up what happens over our afternoon tea. I go away and write it up and then she reads what I’ve done and asks for edits. It’s more fun than anybody really deserves to have.

For years and years and years, I’ve been trying to be serious and grown up in my work. To be honest, I don’t think that’s worked all that well. And one reason it hasn’t worked all that well is that, although I am well educated and think seriously and deeply about all kinds of current issues and philosophical concepts on which I am fairly well-informed, I’m also rather…silly.

Silly by choice. Silly because, damn it, there’s enough to cry about and be shocked by and worry over in life without me sitting down at the keyboard and adding to it. Silly because I have thought seriously and deeply about all kinds of current issues and philosophical concepts on which I am fairly well-informed.

I’m not silly because I’m too stupid to understand the dark side of life. I’m silly because I think the best thing I can do with my talent is help get my readers through another bloody day.

God, I wish I could share this chapter with you right now. The part where the teachers all fall off the back of the stage makes my eyes water with pure joy. Instead, have this selfie of me that got photobombed by the labrador. Hope it makes you smile.