The new Book Slam podcast featuring Don Winslow, James Frey, Bryn Christopher and Byron Vincent is available now. You can listen to it here or, better still, subscribe via iTunes.

Spent much of the last fortnight holed up in the New Forest for an edit of my new novel. As a rule, I pretend such ventures are lonely pilgrimages, significant of wholehearted dedication to my work. But, secretly, I enjoy them. Apart from the chance to immerse myself in what fascinates me most (me, obviously), I can spend evenings watching entire seasons of HBO’s finest and living on nothing but Chinese takeaway.

I have always thought myself a bad sleeper. The Light says I’m not. She thinks I sleep just fine and she should know because she’s a card-carrying insomniac. Nonetheless, I have been struggling to sleep lately and it’s me who’s sitting up tonight with nothing for company but a laptop and the comforting curses of the drunks outside.