Living dead girl...

When you're a nipper, you imagine being a proper grown up is going to be ace with completely added bits of aceness. Like, you'll be able to eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You never have to tidy up if you don't want to. And you can listen to your music as obnoxiously loud as you please without parental intervention. But actually, not so much. I like to eat well balanced, nutritious yet tasty meals. About two years ago I suddenly developed a need to live in a mostly clutter-free environment and now I like my music just loud enough to drown out the sound of my singing. (I often think that if I could hold a tune and arch one eyebrow, I'd be damn near perfect!)

But what no one ever told me when I was a wide-eyed naif, was that being an adult also means having to do mind-numbing, stultifying tasks like filing your tax return. I won't go into the messy details but it involves filing cabinets, paper cuts, discovering that crucial pieces of paper have gone AWOL and having to be talked down from the ledge by my accountant. Finally, tonight with four documents still lost, I'm almost finished and a mere husk of the girl I used to be. See, this is what no one tells you about being a novelist. It's not glamourous or remotely rock 'n' roll although my accountants do also have The Kills and Fierce Panda Records on their books.

Jeez, I can't believe I'm blogging about my tax return. It's a personal low!

I have also been working for a living. I've been typing a lot; words to form sentences that might actually end up in print one day. I've just finished going through the page proofs of the second book in the Fashionistas series, Hadley. That means cutting down on the number of times that characters smirk or raise their eyebrows in a mocking kind of way. We've also finalised the marketing campaign for the first book, Laura (out in the UK, on July 17th, pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk today!) It's all very exciting and I'll tell you more details as I can, but this blog will be heavily involved.

Most importantly, I've realised that it's impossible to choose between Dean and Sam Winchester from Supernatural, so I decided that I love them both equally. This has restored a sense of calm to my life...

Frustrated, table for one...

I'm determined to get through this post without any controversial statements, which I can be berated for, except it's not going to happen, is it?

I've had a spate of the "Please write another DOAC book/sequel to Guitar Girl/Let's Get Lost" comments - strangely no on ever asks for a sequel to Pretty Things. There's not really much I can say, apart from I have no plans to ever. I have explained why many times and have even tagged those entries, which you can see in the column to the left. I am really flattered that you love the books so much but they all ended exactly where they had to. I have other stories I want to tell and I'm not one of those writers who's happy to churn out umpteen books in a series, the quality slipping with every new release. If you want to find out what happens to Molly, I suggest that you read Let's Get Lost where she has a guest star role. I also have no intention of reproducing the Diary Of A Crush columns that featured Grace - for a very good reason. I don't own the copyright to them!Also, I don't think they're very good.

There's not much else to report. I am very busy as usual with a lot of freelance commissions for British ELLE and finishing the first draft of the third book in the Fashionista series, Irina. (Which does have an appearance from a much beloved character from one of my other books - I am such a tease.) I've also been spring-cleaning, probably as an excuse to put off work.

Before this post descends into absolutely no content, maybe a round up of my current cultural things?

I'm listening to

Lots of fey indie stuff: Maths And Physics Club, The Pines and you all need to go out and buy a copy of Lucky Soul's first album, The Great Unwanted for stirring, emotion-soaked, truly great pop songs that sound as if they've been languishing in a vault since the 60's.

I'm watching

The Gilmore Girls. Well, Life On Mars has finished now and I'm missing Gene's pimptastic white loafers but have pulled out all my Gilmore Girls boxed sets and have started re-watching it from the beginning. American readers will already know and love the genius of this show but British girls, you can get the DVDs really cheap and wish that Lorelai was your mum.

I'm reading

Edith Wharton, an American writer from over a hundred years ago who writes great snarky novels about heiresses falling on hard times and the snobbish, suffocating ways of uper crust New York society. It's research for a secret project. I've been having a hard time finding good books to read. Started lots of things (including the worst teen book I've ever read) and had to abandon them a few chapters in. I'm very excited though that I'll soon be getting my sticky hands on How Sassy Changed My Life, which is a book about Sassy, the greatest teen magazine in the world ever (apart from the first six issues of Ellegirl UK and J17 when it first went monthly!)Sassy was a huge influence on me and was one of the main reasons why I stopped writing about music and got a job on a teen mag.

I'm wearing

Empire line dresses over very dark wash skinny-ish jeans and little cardies. I realised that smocks and trapeze dresses make me look like an elephant in the 22nd month of gestation. Really, are they flattering for anyone? And I found my ginormous Bottega Veneta sunglasses when I was spring-cleaning and love them because they make me look like an imperious fashion bitch.


So, that's the state of me. I'm sorry I didn't have time to put pretty pictures or links in this post, but I need to get back to my pesky deadlines so I can afford to eat this month.