It’s exactly four weeks until my next book comes out! Yesterday I completed the final proofread and so it has now left the building for good. What is done is done. No more chances to change or tweak. This is why I feel sick. I think most authors are loathe to let go. There’s always that niggling feeling that you could still improve it in some way.  But as my husband says, ‘You are seeing the hole and not the Polo…’ (not sure how helpful that is!). I also feel sick because this one is a bit different. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still funny,  but when you write a book about a woman who discovers she has a terminal illness on the same day as her husband is having an affair….well… that is just a bit different isn’t it.

I’m going to put it out there that I think it’s my best yet…there I said it! I know I shouldn’t but I’m going to stick my neck out. Because this one has to be, you see. It was partly inspired by a very special person who always did her best, always bought her A-game. This is my A-game, which is why I feel sicker than usual sending back the proof. No doubt I will go through agonies over the next month until it’s in your hands and you can tell me what you think about how Jenny reacts to the two catastrophes in her life. I hope it makes you laugh and cry. Please do let me know.

THE LAST LAUGH is out on February 23^rd 2018. You can pre-order here now.

So 10am yesterday morning finds me in a the cinema waiting for T2 Trainspotting to start. There’s me and a cool looking couple in their forties and a man in a mac. There’s always a man in a mac alone in the cinema  isn’t there? I’d convinced myself that I was there for research purposes. The themes in my current work-in-progress are also covered in the much anticipated sequel. Getting older, nostalgia, regret, screwing it up and friendship. But really I was just desperate to see it. To say I’d seen it is probably more accurate. I’ve thought long and hard afterwards about why it felt so good to see the ultimate losers of Renton, Sickboy, Spud and Begby again. It was my ten year old son who gave me the answer. I played Born Slippy by  Underworld to him, the highly recognisable theme tune from the original film. I was amazed he didn’t love it. “How can you not love it? I demanded. “This was the biggest song on the planet twenty years ago.” “Exactly,” he shrugged.  And that was when I realised that what all us forty somethings are really  excited about is the fact that Trainspotting  reminds us that we were cool once. Twenty years ago, we were at the cutting edge of a cultural phenomena – we were it – the generation that discovered and celebrated something new and different and shocking and brilliant. And no-one, not even a ten year old can take that away from me in my middle-age. So I will go and see the sequel and pretend I’m cool again and pretend it’s research for my latest novel and tell everyone that’s what I’ve have done.

I know, I know, I haven’t written anything here for a while but in the interests of starting 2017 as I mean to go on, I have vowed to share more with those willing listen. So thank you if you are reading this. I will do my best to provide some nougats of entertainment and information.

2017 finds me half way through writing my sixth novel!!  Wowser – how did that happen?So today I have decided to share what I’ve learnt having written five and a half books.

1. That the bit you thought was hilarious, no-one seems to notice, but something you thought wasn’t that funny, cracks people up. Comedy is weird, weird thing.
2. Most 60+ yr old men I meet think I write erotic novels and make jokes about sex and Tuesdays. I will write the book they think I wrote one day!
3. Nothing beats the thrill of receiving your book published in Serbia covered in pictures of bonking rabbits?
4. The people who ask me how to get a book published but haven’t actually written anything yet, I know will never be published.
5. A huge amount of television needs to be watched for research purposes.
6. Social media is the time enemy of all writers but without it we’d be lonely during the day and would eat more biscuits. Facebook is my current diet of choice.
7. Writers are the only workers on the planet who wish they could attend more meetings. Just let me talk please!
8. Writing can make you so happy and full of joy when it’s going right and so cross and wretched when it isn’t, but you know it’s worth it in the end.  A bit like marriage really!

I will end on a wine and book  recommendation since I have just been  on a trip to New Zealand and consumed much of both! My favourite novel was an oldie from Jojo Moyes, called The Last Letter From Your Lover. An absolute classic love story but with some superb twists. I couldn’t put it down. And this was drunk by this view. Both divine.

Back soon – Tracy x