With the upcoming book finally put to bed, and a new manuscript not due until early next year, I had planned to come back on the blog and post a bit more often. I've had loads of ideas.

So considered at length were various entries on:

• Whether to be frightened or excited at T's suggestion that he move in (temporarily (likely story))
  
• A weird BDSM episode from recently, though probably more educational - as in, how not to stage your scene - than sexy
  
• Why I don't understand how people with (apparently) so many fans can be such miseryguts 100% of the time. This is what I like to call Jimmy Carr Syndrome, except even less funny than the original.
  
• The five stages of blogging: Denial, Anger, yadda yadda yadda...
  

But my blogging gland has well and truly failed for the time being. Sadly, I am lacking the moral courage, tenacity, or whatever to follow them through in the last week. It's warm. It's sunny. I'm having a splendid time in my new city, and everything that comes with that from beaches to festivals to lovely days out and in. So I'm not going to officially call this a hiatus, but will say that Twitter is about as much as I can be exercised to contribute at the moment. As has often been noted, I am inherently lazy.

Oh, and for the ladies who keep pestering our friend Justin about where to buy my books... see that handy column on the right? Click through on the book-related links and you will be whisked to the Amazon of your choice. It's that simple. Enjoy!

I started an entry about whether women do in fact make terrible sex writers, then stopped. Quite apart from the fact that the new editor of the Erotic Review clearly only said what she did to drum up attention for the magazine (and the Times did give both me and Kathy Lette room to reply) I am surely the last person to be speaking for 'women in general'. My experience, it has been pointed out - not only by myself but by numerous detractors - is atypical. Your mileage not only may, but will, vary.

But it set me to thinking about writing in general. I know a large number of people who say they would like to finish a novel, if only they had the time. So as someone who has had this writing (for lack of a better word) hobby paying reasonable dividends for the last few years, alongside a demanding 'real' job, I feel at least qualified to comment on that count.

And because I do from time to time field questions not only of the sexual sort but also of the getting published sort, I'll write my Top Tips here.

Don't worry, it won't take much away from your writing process, because it can be summed up thusly:

Get writing, stay writing, and don't say no.

This is the point at which I would like to introduce my special guests, Bell Biv DeVoe, to break it down for you...








...only they weren't available (since 1991) so I'll have to do it myself.

1. Get writing.

It was a far more prolific and talented writer than me who once said 'don't get it right, get it written.' In the last week alone I've witnessed an endless discussion of whether Scrivener was the right writing tool, what word count is considered sufficient day's work, and how to find a good agent - all by people who have, as yet, not completed a single book between them. I do not consider this insignificant. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but... ya know.

2. Stay writing.

Once the ball is rolling, keep it rolling. Have you heard of the Jerry Seinfeld method? Don't break the chain. Even if it never sees the light of day, write something every day, make it a habit. Make it your job to write regularly, even if it doesn't pay (yet). Better yet, edit your writing every day too. Genius is the relentless application of attention.

3. Don't say no.

One of T's exes was a public figure of medium-ish fame who has lately disappeared from public view. It wasn't because she was surpassed by prettier, more talented types; it's because she was constantly waiting for the ideal next offer. I've tried not to do that because what comes easily can go just as easily and there is no such thing as irreplaceable talent in media.

What I thought would be a flash in the pan has turned into a book, then three, with three yet to come, not to mention three series of the TV adaptation. Why? Because when people made offers, I didn't say no. They weren't always what I wanted on the surface, and I could rightfully be accused of selling out. But there has been opportunity, in each of those, to turn them into an approximation of what I wanted. Which over time has given me far more freedom to do precisely what I want to, because people know I deliver, and are therefore more likely to trust my judgement.

Oh, there's one more thing: Try to be nice.

Of course, this writing lark could - and probably will - end at any time. But since I am still amazed that anyone reads my writing at all, much less wants to publish it, still less pay folding money to own it, a feeling of gratitude has kept me going even through the frustration.

Everyone likes a cat fight and I have occasionally been happy to step up to the bitch plate. But snarling attacks have their place and that place is far, far away from the people who make your contracts and buy your books. A big fuck-you attitude is brilliant for content, but poison for the day-to-day interactions publishers, agents, and readers. I like 99% of the people I interact with in this role and love to keep it that way. Attitude problems are the enemy of Getting Shit Done.

That's it, really. I'd write a book about it but it would be a very short book!

Over at Twitter, I've teamed up with sexual health trainers Bish to retweet daily sexual health and wellbeing tips. If you have a related question, tweet either of us!

I've given in, alas - on Twitter now - but can't promise either a) to be interesting and b) not to get sick of it and give up on that too! xx

I've left Facebook.

Truth be told my recent move has reduced my Putting Up With Shit threshold to zero. If something provides more stress than benefit I'm afraid it gets cut right out these days. There's precious little time in the day as it is; spending any of it on things I don't enjoy doing makes less and less sense.

99% of the people I interacted with there were fine - nice, even. However in the last two years I have also encountered trolls, impostors, and in one case, someone pretending to be someone else in order to physically threaten me. And I'm simply not in a place where I have either the tolerance or time to deal with any of that any longer.

So, if you were one of the nice ones, I'm sorry to tar you all with the same brush. It's simply that once the friend counter hits the several thousands a certain amount of time is spent each day curating. This is why I don't have comments on the blog, incidentally - between writing and having a Real Job there is no time left for wheat/chaff sorting.

And it's only a social networking site after all. Contrary to popular belief Facebook, Twitter et al. will not change the world.

Been wandering around in a daze of unreality the last few days. To have two friends go in six months - and similar circumstances - is unnerving; I can't quite stop the superstitious side, the little voice that wonders who might be next. Also the fact of this young man's life, unlike the other: this one was younger, unmarried, no children, no girlfriend even. All potential. So well liked. But with little tangible left behind, little legacy, you begin to wonder how long before he is an anecdote to us. A name, a photo. And finally in the years from now a twinge at most. Age shall not weary him, no, but our imperfect memories will forget.

And yes, I wonder about myself. If I was that third person what would people remember about me?

Yesterday in one of the broadsheets was published a list of things that I, as a woman, should have achieved by my thirties. What would ordinarily be weightless fluff suddenly felt morally offensive. I should have amassed a shoe collection? Been taken to lunch by my boss? Negotiated a pay rise? What the fuck, people? What the fuck? I hope no one in real grieving - my friend's mother, say, or those female friends closer to him than I was - saw that article. We are being told by no less than the paper of record that the gold standard of human achievement amounts to buying pointless garments with the dosh you earned in your pointless job.

Here's a scenario: at your funeral, do you want people to say thank goodness she hatched a plan for her own business before she died? I mean, really?

Not for the first time am I ambivalent about our first world problems. Not being able to afford a mortgage, yeah, not super. Losing your 25-year-old child, another fucking planet of hurt.

I don't mean to imply in the face of awesome human suffering that our worries are meaningless. But it is increasingly clear we have lost sight utterly of what constitutes an actual, real concern, what it means to be a good human person, how to live. We call cleverness with investments virtue and luck in the stock markets intelligence. And I'm not saying knitting your own yoghurt is the way forward either - in many ways, the locally-sourced/green/frugal schtick is only replacing one consumerist paradigm with another, because it is still a way of measuring the value of your life by what you have and how you spend.

What I'm saying is... I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know if it is better to be a good human in the ways that are traditionally admirable (raising children well, not hurting others) or whether, in the long perspective that is the age of the earth, what we do matters at all. What I do know is that if I am remembered for anything I do not want it to be for having spent loads of money on shoes.

Yesterday word made the rounds - a friend has died, suddenly, at a shockingly young age. No one knows what to say, really.

I know I have written about him but can't find anything on the blog - must be in the first book, and I don't have a copy of the first book.

A big ask, but if anyone can find the entries about the man at the gym whom I wanted to lick sweat off of - the subject of the 10p bet as to who would pull him first - and can send them to me, via Facebook, I would be most grateful. Cheers folks - I have them now. Thank you to everyone who responded so quickly.