It’s lovely getting feedback about Dreamrunner and it was fantastic to hear the reaction of Dr Carlos Schenck, a world authority on sleep disorders, who helpfully diagnosed the fictional Carlos for me and shared his expertise when I was wrapping up the final draft of the novel. When he’d finished reading Dreamrunner, he wrote:

‘You have truly written the “ultimate Parasomnia novel”. And it was a heartwarming story… you have certainly served the sleep medicine field very well, and in particular the area of Parasomnias, by raising vital awareness about this seemingly obscure – but in fact highly prevalent – set of sleep disorders that can wreak havoc on personal and family lives… I will be singing the praises of your novel.’

Often people only hear about sleep disorders when a horrific case of sleep violence comes to light, and there’s a tendency to think it’s something freakish that couldn’t happen to oneself. Sleep disorders often remain undiagnosed and so sufferers are inclined to fear that they’re losing their minds. Dr Schenck thinks it’s important to educate general physicians as well as the general public, so that such disorders can be diagnosed early on and treated before they erupt into violence.

To learn more about sleep disorders, check out Dr Schenck’s websites: www.parasomnias-rbd.com and www.sleeprunners.com

The days are whizzing by and I can’t believe Dreamrunner will be published next week! I haven’t reread it since I finished it as I’m looking forward to reading it once it looks all beautiful, plus the months-long gap will hopefully allow me to read it with some perspective and a degree of relaxation and enjoyment – at the end of the writing process it was all a bit hectic and by the time we’d done the copy-editing stage I think I knew every line by heart, but in the worst way: meaning I was kind of sick of it! Poor Dreamrunner, although I’m pretty sure it was the same with Breathing in Colour. Some writers do say that feeling sick at the sight of your book is a sure sign you’ve finished it… I just hope readers get something good out of it, it’s always so lovely to hear (or read) about someone enjoying the results of your hard slog.

People keep telling me to see Inception, which is about people sneaking into other people’s dreams, and, like Dreamrunner, it apparently focuses on the uncomfortable edges of the unconscious, with nightmarish scenarios. It looks a bit flashy-action-movie-ish to me but the premise sounds interesting and I will make a point of seeing it at some stage (maybe the DVD stage). For now, I’m gearing myself up to Dreamrunner and keeping my fingers crossed it’ll go down well J

No Man & Other Stories to Help Haiti is a charity eBook of short stories by Little, Brown authors, with all proceeds going to UNICEF to help children affected by the disaster. When my editor asked me if I would like to contribute a story, I was in a writing frenzy, days away from the final deadline for Dreamrunner, and so I sent in a story I’d already written, The Kielius Fish.

On publication day, which marked 100 days since the earthquake, I downloaded No Man along with the Adobe e-reading software and I’m now enjoying the first eBook I’ve ever owned! It’s great to have it just a click away while I play around with half-written poems or catch up on emails, and I’ve been dipping into it while the baby naps. There are some wonderful stories in there, all very different from each other. If you’d like a copy, just click on the book cover.