Have I mentioned that my novel is trying to kill me? Yes, it’s one of those (I mean, they’re all one of those at some stage, but this one seems to have a gun in each hand and a knife hidden in an ankle sheath). I sent it out on submission in the spring, thinking it was ready, then spent four months writing something else. The response was… not what I’d hoped for, so I decided to sit down with it and take another look.

This time I had fresh eyes and no emotional connection to the material. And gu...