I've been able to spend all this week concentrating on the new novel. I've been rewriting notes, adding new characters, working out when a particular murder takes place and how it helps the story develop; it's been brilliant. (I promise you it is still a comedy, even though there are killings. One of my characters is on medication that gives her the side effect of feeling horny all of the time...she doesn't want to change the dose).

I had to draw myself a map of the setting yesterday; the city centre of Cunden Lingus. Well I say draw, a few squares inside a big circle that represents a ring road on a scrap of paper isn't going to win me any art awards...unless I scrunch it up, piss on it and call it 'Artist's Struggle' and then it will be up for the Turner Prize!

I'm really pleased with how the ideas for the novel are progressing. I have the opening of the story prepared, which is always handy as writing the first few lines of what will become a 90k - 100k words book can be daunting. Mind you, by the time you're up to draft five, the original opening will have gone completely and been replaced by something totally different.

Still, that's all part of the writing process and I absolutely adore it.