Today has been Book End Day. I don’t know if other writers have this tic but when I get to a certain point in the, ahem, creative process, I feel the book starting to lean and creak towards the as yet unwritten end. So I write the end. Then, feeling better shored up, I go back to where I was in the story.

When I start on a new book I always have a pretty firm idea how it’s going to end. Without that I fear it would just witter aimlessly on. But at that early stage nothing is definite. Over the years  I’ve had some changes of heart, either self-generated or editorially imposed.  One can’t always engineer a happy ending but I can see it makes good marketing sense not to leave one’s readers depressed.

My current work-in-progress throws up a particular challenge there. My protagonist’s true story has some frankly bum moments. All I’ll say for now is that I hope the indestructible sense of the absurd I’ve endowed her with will carry the day.  Anyway, her retaining wall is now in place so I feel I can take the weekend off and come back to the pre-end stuffing  narrative on Monday morning with renewed vigour.

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I have many talented friends, not least the very fabulous poet, lyricist and Olympic standard shopper Caryl Avery. She’s written a brilliant  revue parodying the world of nip and tuck. I’ve seen a preview.  It deserves an audience. It needs investors. You can read more about CUTS: an Uplifting musical here on Caryl’s shiny new website. Finally she listened to me.

But as I just told her, ‘The website is only the beginning. Now go forth and blog.’