Dividing One's Time.

I’m busy writing Machete,  the third in the Jake & Jouma series, which is due for publication in December.

Over the last few days, however, I’ve been correcting proofs for Burn, which is out at the end of June. For someone who, in the course of going from my office in the attic to the kitchen can forget why, this has been a deeply confusing time.

Let’s hope that one of these days I’ll be one of those writers who are rich enough to produce just one book a year. The sort who spends the other nine months flitting between the many homes they own around the world.

I’ve always thought the line “Fred Bloggs divides his time between Tuscany and Los Angeles” looks really cool beneath their Mario Testino author portrait on the dust jacket.

Now I realise it’s also a coded message to other writers that here is a guy who’s made it. It’s the literary equivalent of parking a big red Maerati in the driveway when your neighbour’s got a beat-up Honda Civic.

Part of the proof-correcting job has been to update my own paltry biography. It has been sorely tempting to write “since the publication of Bait Nick Brownlee divides his time between Monaco, Provence and Aspen”.

One must be realistic, however. Which is why I shall continue to divide my time between my attic office and the kitchen until such time as Ridley Scott buys the rights to my books.