Happy book birthday to me!

Wow. My Mother Was An Upright Piano, my second collection of fictions, is two years' old today. It was published on May 3, 2012 by Tangent Books. I hadn't thought I was going to do anything about the birthday, hence writing this at 11.07pm! But I feel like I want to say something. Something short, which is in keeping with the book's contents and with my general writing ethos. I am very grateful. That's what I want to say. It was always my dream, from childhood, to have my name on the spine of one book. I get it on two books (although, actually, my name couldn't fit on MMWAUP, a warning to those of you choosing lengthy titles!).

But on a serious note, having a book at all was never something I believed would really happen. I think I thought it was only something other people got to do. Just like I think I thought that being a writer was somehow only something other people (maybe the ones with the degrees in English rather than Maths and Physics) got to do. And here I am, doing it. Every day, almost everything I think about, everything I do, has something to do with being a writer. (Yes, even you, Twitter). How wonderful, miraculous, awe-inspiringly fantastic is that? I get to be a writer, I get to spend time with other writers, I get to write and to talk about writing. And - more often than not these days - I get paid for it. It's my JOB.

I won't go on. I'll only say again that I feel grateful, and immensely blessed. Dare to dream. It's worth it.