Today – 5th May 2016 – is the day my nineteenth book is published. Nineteen? How did I get to that number? Surely I can’t be old enough to have written so many because it seems an awfully large number. However, I am thrilled, as I always am, to welcome another creation into the world.

Before I wrote books I had kids. I had three in fact. I don’t know why I say ‘had’ because I still have them although they’re all out in the world, doing their thing, and not really bothering me very much. (This picture is 26 years old!)

 

But producing books or children have a remarkable number of similarities. For a start, from flash to bang (or in this case should it be bang to flash?) the process takes about nine months. At times it can be wearing, painful, your emotions are all over the place, your partner doesn’t have a clue what you’re experiencing and, although you know loads of other people have done it before you, it is very, very scary. As another author pointed out to me, with a book, the sleepless nights come before the birth, not after, but other than that, it’s all intrinsically the same.

Anyway, happy birthday Civvy Street.