Winter 2020

I haven’t written for ages, due to life getting in the way (something with which we’re all familiar). Plus a horribly dreary wet winter and grim national and international news (with which we’re all familiar too).

Still, that’s no excuse. For any faithful readers, hello again.

To companion myself during these fallow months I’ve been reading the biographies of two great procrastinators – Coleridge and De Quincy. Richard Holmes’s two-part book about Coleridge is utterly riveting – a man so full of talent but battered by a self-destructive malaise. And De Quincy, in Frances Wilson’s blissful biography, was afflicted by something similar. Both men, of course, suffered from their addiction to opium. Not my excuse. But reading about blocked writers is always a strange sort of comfort.

Anyway, I’m revving myself up again and I hope to be adapting “The Carer” for TV – just writing an outline now. The novel certainly hit a spot; I had no idea how many people are in this position, and who have found solace and a few laughs from reading about it. Hopefully, it might make a fine and relevant TV drama.

And at last, I do seem to have an idea for a novel. Maybe the world doesn’t need yet another book from me, but it’s in the blood and if I’m not writing one I feel totally empty, so you’ll have to humour me.

In the next couple of months I’m appearing at the Ways with Words Festival in Keswick at 2.30 on March 10, and the Fishbourne Literary Festival on 28 March. Google them for details.

And do look out for Chris Atkins’s book “A Bit Of A Stretch”.  He’s the father of my grandson, and he was banged up for a tax avoidance thing, to do with funding for one of his films. His prison diary is utterly fascinating – shocking, funny, upsetting. It might actually help to make a change to the way we run our prisons – and it’s a terrific read. Published 5 February.

Meanwhile, as ever, do get in touch if you fancy, you know my email: moggachdeborah@gmail.com