My nerves, jitters, fears, doubts and uncertainties disappeared within fifteen minutes. They had done a great job and the script worked. Well, most of it did. There were a few jokes that always fell flat, so they were excised before we transferred to Brighton. The most surprising thing for me was the moment when I was moved to tears. ‘How can this be?’ I thought. ‘I wrote the damned line.’ Well, that’s theatre for you.

And the negatives? I think the Q&A panel after one of the shows was a mistake. When a play is over the audience don’t want a discussion, they want dinner. Also, with the exception of one full house we played to very small audiences. I don’t know how actors do it. It must be so dispiriting to come out onto the stage and see just your Aunt Gladys and a man who’s come in out of the rain. I had the option  -  though I never exercised it  –  of slipping away and going to the pub, but Sian Hawthorn couldn’t. Whatever the turnout she gave it her all. I take my hat off to her.

You can hear a brief and extremely impromptu after-show interview with the pair of us here .

1. Complete construction of pantomime cow’s head.

2. Bottle blackberry whiskey.

3. Write new novel.

Then on Thursday two things happened. My editor informed me that the Bonus Features for the mass market edition of A Humble Companion were required immediately, if not sooner. And I caught a bug that forced me to spend more time in the bathroom than at my desk.

What to do? A production schedule doesn’t have elastic sides. ’Buck up’ was always my Mum’s advice to the sick. Between slugs of flat Coca Cola and half hour stretches whimpering in a darkened room, I knocked out the Bonus Features in 200 word stints. I don’t think it shows. But if it does, you’ll know why.

So that’s put to bed, and so is the hardback of The Liar’s Daughter, which means I now have absolutely no excuse for not getting on with the new book. Except for my blogging obligations and indulging in potential theatrical fantasies. Yes, I’m hooked. Working with other people is so much more fun than being Cubicle Woman.

So, Laurie Graham, how was it for you?

It was gut-churning, nail-biting and also the most enormous fun. Friends and family turned out for me, and so did some amazing fans. Pam Redrup did a great job of directing. Sian Hawthorn carried off a 55 minute tour de force.   Can you imagine being alone on stage for nearly an hour? Worse still, can you imagine being able to see the whites of your audience’s eyes? Baron’s Court was an… ahem, intimate space. Sian could probably see people’s dandruff.

I sat through all six performances. You need to really, to note which lines always get a laugh and which lines never do. Then I went back to my hotel room and carried out a bit of surgery  -  nothing radical, just the theatrical equivalent of removing a skin tag or two. Anyone who saw the play in London and then sees it in Brighton, i.e. my poor husband, will find that ‘collecting Toby jugs’ has been replaced by ‘breeding budgies’.  No-one knows what Toby jugs are any more. They had to go.

Also Alvechurch has become Bromsgrove. Alvechurch is one of those words that gets swallowed. It sounded like ‘Our Church’, which made no sense at all. But anyway, only a play’s mother would notice these little tweaks.

I’m looking forward to Brighton.  I now know that the script works, I now know it’s in very safe hands, and the worst that can happen is an empty auditorium. Offset that against sea air, good fish and chips, and some granny-time with one of my little granddaughters. Life is good.

Five words a playwright hopes never to hear:  ticket sales disappointing so far. 

I’m not a total stranger to this kind of announcement. Usually it contains the word ‘book’ rather than ‘ticket’. Nevertheless, it still strikes a chill. After all, this isn’t the London Palladium I’m trying to fill.

Next Thursday’s performance at the Baron’s Court Theatre is gratifyingly sold out, thanks in no small way to the efforts of that diligent and dutiful uber-networker, my son, Alastair. Every other show is looking threadbare.

It happens. I remember being in a single-figure matinee audience at the Coventry Criterion and watching Joe ‘Mr Piano Henderson’ plinking manfully on, into the void. If it bothered him he didn’t show it.

Actually, my main problem this week isn’t gloom from the box office. It’s impotence. A week to go till the opening. The actress still has a job to do, and so does the director, but my role ended the day I signed off on the script. And that is probably why, so far today, I’ve emptied the toaster crumb tray and cleaned two pairs of my husband’s shoes. Occupational therapy.

It isn’t working.

that just as I’m getting into a new book I have to double back and copy-edit the one I’ve supposedly finished. Copy-editing is important, as you’ll know if you’ve ever read a self-published book full of typos and bloopers, but it’s a drag. It is to book production what weeding is to landscape gardening.

Writers and copy editors never meet. Theirs is a distant and impersonal relationship, though it may be resumed every year or so. It’s quite usual for the same person to be asked to copy-edit successive books by an author. Copy editors are hawk-eyed. They catch mistakes and may save a writer much pillow-biting embarrassment. They also remember all the particulars of a publisher’s house style and so, for instance, know the preferred format for expressing dates. So far so good.

Sometimes they go a step further and when they do I feel I detect the touch of a would-be writer. I’m experiencing a little bit of that this week.

This para could be cut without loss said one margin note. Oh yes? Ha! Says you!

It’s very simple. Editing is all done on the computer these days. I simply hit the Reject button and the threatened para stays in.

Suggest using a less arcane word here said another note. Well now. First of all I don’t feel any obligation to pre-chew what I give my readers. I know they’re intelligent because I meet them and correspond with them. And if I happen to use a word they never heard before, sure don’t they have dictionaries? When A Humble Companion was being edited I remember having quite a tussle over ‘powder magazine’.

‘People won’t know what that is,’ they said to me.

‘Perhaps,’ I replied. ‘But let’s give them the opportunity to learn.’

The most egregious intrusion, as far as I’m concerned, is when a copy editor adds a clunking explanatory clause, something like, Lucretia stepped lightly into the waiting sandolo, a Venetian rowing boat smaller than a gondola…

I had to deal with one such this morning. If I’d had a blue pencil to hand I’d have broken it over my knee in fury. So, if you’re thinking of reading The Liar’s Daughter when it finally sees the light of day, you’ll need to know what a sutler is. Also the medical use of the word ‘rigor’.

You have been warned.

All of a sudden I’m back in business. My publisher offered me another contract and it’s all systems go. The world looks like getting two more Laurie Graham novels, like it or lump it.

I can’t tell you how energising it is to be told you’re still wanted. Well actually I can. It’s like someone just brought in a Dyson Animal and declagged my brain. All the ideas, all the plans that have been on hold now have a possible future. Or not.  In the green glow of the Go light some projects don’t make the final cut.

Here’s what happens next. I don’t start writing. Probably not for a couple of months. I have to do a lot of reading and thinking first. However this doesn’t delay one of my early rituals when I’m getting to work on a new book: choosing a font. I find changing fonts dilutes the boredom factor. A Humble Companion, for instance, was written in Georgia 12 point, which means, attractive as it is, I don’t want to see that typeface again for a very long time. At the moment it’s a toss up between Century Gothic and Lucida Sans. Don’t know why. Pure whimsy.

The other preparatory act is setting up  new research shelves on the bookcase in my office and I here I must confess I’ve been a bit sloppy of late.   Instead of having a good clear out when a book has been put to bed I’ve just squeezed new stuff into any gap I could find. This morning, in a fit of ruthless thoroughness, I’ve removed reference books that go back into the primeval mists of my writing career. Tsk, tsk. Our local charity shop may expect a big delivery of books on Liberace, the Kennedys and the Windsors any day soon.

So that’s my weekend. The housekeeping side of writing. Remember the start of a school year when you brought your pristine books home and covered them with brown paper? And then maybe copied out your new timetable with a 10-colour biro? You get the picture.

Good thing I got a head start on those origami Easter bunnies.

‘I’ve got this great idea for a book,’ someone will say to me. ‘But I just can’t seem to get started.’

I can empathise with that. Except that quite often I don’t have a great idea for a book. I just have a mental ragbag of possibilities which I take out every so often, rummage through it despairingly and then go for a walk.

I do a lot of walking. When Mr F and I went to live in Venice  fourteen years ago our need for a car disappeared. When we moved to Ireland three years ago our means of affording a car had disappeared. So we became walkers. Well, I did. My husband became a devotee of radio cabs. But anyway, walking is one of my most important aids to creativity. I find it a good way of shaking loose a knotty problem.

Then there’s the wastepaper basket.  The older I get, the longer I’m in the writing business, the greater the volume of stuff that goes swiftly from pen to   bin, sometimes to the cane one I keep within tossing distance of my desk, more often to the little virtual one on my computer screen.  And if, in spite of niggling doubts, I hang on to something of questionable merit, you know what? Eventually I end up dumping it anyway. So, if you’re just starting out as a writer I’d recommend you to embrace your trash can. It is your friend.

Then there are deliberate acts of not-writing. I’m a big fan of those. We all need periods of rest and refreshment and  writers can be susceptible to professional constipation, especially those who take themselves very seriously. I prescribe a daily dose of whimsy. Get out of that chair, dammit, and walk away from your desk for an hour. Use a different part of your brain. The world can wait for your masterpiece, trust me.

My current play-time activities are:  making origami hares for my Easter lunch table.

Also, trying to play, without fluffing, Yevtushenko’s lovely Morning Song, composed for the soundtrack of The Last Station.

Advice from the coalface of fiction writing.  You are very welcome.

All this is by way of prefacing a link to an excellent piece by George F. Will in today’s Washington Post.  It says a lot of things I’d have said myself if only I’d been smart enough, and has the added value of quoting Elmore Leonard and William Zinsser (pictured left), two sages before whom I genuflect.

Read and learn.

So what to offer my best beloved readers? I thought I’d give you some Laurie

Graham dates for your diary.

April 23rd: birthday of Shakespeare and my Mum, and opening night of The Dress Circle in London.

May 9th:  Opening of The Dress Circle at the Brighton Fringe

August 29th: Publication of A Humble Companion as a mass market paperback.

October 10th: First publication of The Liar’s Daughter.

January 16th 2014: Opening of Jack and the Beanstalk, written and directed by yours truly, Teatro Avogaria, Dorsoduro, Venice.

Will that do you, for now?

Let me tell you my position on endorsements. I have, in my time, received generous ones from other writers. When it’s in my power to reciprocate  -  and I’m really talking here about finding the time to read a book I hadn’t planned on reading   -  I’m happy to do it.  However this particular author (and she’s not the first) had queered the pitch by inundating me, I mean bombarding me, with publication day messages.

I’ve been paddling in the social media shallows for about a year now and I’ve learned something. It is an effortlessly easy way to annoy people. I hope I haven’t annoyed anyone, but I’ve certainly been on the receiving end of saturation self-promotion. On one occasion, when I just couldn’t take it any more, I asked the author to stop. I was called ‘mean-spirited.’

I’m truly not.  But there’s such a want of self-awareness and good manners on Facebook and Twitter, such ruthless pushing and shouting, I’d dearly love to leave. Only I’m not allowed. Funnily enough my publishers just sent me a reminder that they’re running a seminar on social networking this very week. I’ve sent my regrets. Got to get to work on those cow ears.

The read-through of Dress Circle went very well. It was conducted in a deeply brown upper room, with the hum and clink of a public bar percolating up through the floor. Some of my lines caused spontaneous laughter, some fell flat. That’s the way it goes. The actress threatened to lose weight before April. I begged her not to. I was informed that Tarquin Olivier and Dame Janet Suzman have hinted they’ll come to a performance. Ooooh- err. And I now have to address the very serious matter of which earrings to wear for the Author Q&A session.  A writer’s life. I tell ya!