Making A Living As A Writer

There are long, languid, tedious days of waiting for something - anything - to happen. And there are times like this when it's all kicking off at once you don't know which way to turn. I refer to the life of a writer.

I'll be brief. Having parted company, amicably enough, with hot-shot literary agents Curtis Brown, Mike Pannett and I have been casting around for another agent. Today one came looking for us: a young guy with a background in tabloid journalism who specialises in popular, broad-appeal action stuff. I mean contemporary war memoirs; real-life espionage; guys defusing bombs; political intrigue; sporting memoirs. He's very keen indeed to work with us from the earliest possible stage as we roll out our plans for books set in London and based on Mike's life in the Met. in the late 1980s and 1990s. The fact is that while I am confident about writing them, I am uncertain as to tone and style. Is this to be  pure grit - brutal realism on the mean steets of Battersea? Or a more light-hearted, Now-Then-Lad-meets-Crocodile-Dundee as a bespectacled Yorkshire lad heads for the capital for the first time?

The long and the short of it is, we're meeting him for lunch (his treat) Wednesday. Watch this space.