Everything must end

The Obsessive Diary - June 20th

Housekeeping:

Samuél Lopez-Barrantes

and I will be LIVE and direct at 12pm BST today shooting the publishing breeze and chewing the literary fat. Join us. Keep an eye out for the link. 👀

I’ve decided to rejig my working life, to find a new design that will sustain it. There’ve been such changes in the last few years and how it was, and how I structured it needs a rethink. For a start I used to be working on only one book at a time. This, no longer. I’ve three in various stages of production; one in first draft, another in edit for bound publishing and a third in edit for serialisation. I used to have children at home and at school requiring all that children require, a constant driving, cooking, loving, being there when they needed me and being there for the knowledge that this too would end. The joy. The cherish. The labour. But all things, as David Shrigley points out, must end and in the way of life unfolding in the right order, they have grown up, left school and are on the verge of leaving home. I’ll still keep the home fire’s burning, but they don’t need me how once they did.

Similarly my literary life which jostled for space with them all those years, which had me up at my desk at 4am every morning, has grown, too. I was chatting with Orna Ross yesterday, reminiscing about the days when I only had one thing on my desk, one novel and a whole host of hustle. That hustle has paid off. I’ve built a career and with each yes has come commitment. And so my diary fills.

And one more thing happened yesterday which told me a story has come to an end and a new one is about to begin.