I never imagined the weeks surrounding publication day would be so busy and exciting. This has been a real writing week, starting with an interview with the Western Morning News. The features editor was interested in my travels in India and the inspiration for the synaesthesia passages of the book. WMN covers the counties of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, so as I grew up in Totnes, I’m classed as a local author. The Leeds Reporter is going to publish a short piece about the novel, too. Press cuttings arrived from my publicist with lots of nice review comments. I also had to work with my web designer on Search Engine Optimisation in the form of descriptive paragraphs for each page of this website. During the writing of my Ganges short story for My Weekly, I found myself immersed again in India imagery. I wrote about floating marigolds, an oarsman with eyes as deep and still as sunken jewels, and a naked saddhu with dreadlocks coiled high on his head like a hat of snakes.

Then there was work on Dreamrunner – I talked with my editor about the imagery and colours we could use for the jacket (yes, they’re already working away on the cover, almost a year before it’s due to be published!) and I also managed to fit in some hours by the sea to write the next chapter, where seven-year-old Leo finds a ‘dolphin eye’ on the beach and recovers from an alcoholic potion-induced hangover.

In the middle of all this, a weighty package arrived from the UK (I’m in Portugal at the mo, where Dreamrunner is set) and I tore it open to find a very lovely, purple-wrapped and ribboned box containing a bottle of champagne! It was from Piatkus Fiction, to congratulate me on the publication of Breathing in Colour. I plan to crack it open this weekend on the beach with three of my best friends and my husband – a gorgeous way to celebrate.

Ah… the writer’s life! J

Today is the day that Breathing in Colour hits the bookshops. Quite nerve-wracking, really, although thankfully I’m not in the UK at the moment so won’t be tempted to hover anxiously at store doorways trying to see whether people seem interested in it or not! My author copies arrived the other week and the book cover looks stunning – all credit to the hardworking designers at Piatkus.

It’s been kind of hectic in the build-up to publication because of the publicity things I’ve been doing – I even caved in and agreed to write a short story set in India for My Weekly, so I’m doing that this week. At first I wasn’t sure what I’d write about but my usual technique of dozing in the garden and watching the hypnagogic imagery develop behind my eyelids brought me a strong image of a blue-eyed woman floating along the Ganges at dawn in a wooden boat, and as soon as I saw her I knew her name and why she was there, so the story should hopefully just flow from there now. I’ve also done a ‘First Draft’ interview with Mslexia which was good fun, comparing an early draft of one of the synaesthesia sections of the book with the final, published version, and apart from that I’ve been organising press releases to send to various publications, not to mention putting the finishing touches to this website before it went live.

Unsurprisingly, all this has ejected me from the writing of Dreamrunner, but only temporarily, I hope; by the end of this week I’ll be free to immerse myself in nightmares and dolphins and all that sort of stuff! Looking forward to it – and to getting updates from my agent and editor as to how Breathing in Colour is doing out there in the big wide world.

I set up this website partly because it’s good for writers to have a web presence these days – though I admit to being turned off by the hard-sell author sites you come across sometimes, with BUY NOW signs flashing all over the place; partly for the fun of designing a site, helped immensely by Digitalplot, and partly to share my thoughts on creative writing, drawing on my experience of teaching the subject at university level and studying the process of novel writing in-depth as part of a PhD.

The creative process of writing is often considered to be dreamlike, private, even slightly mysterious. This site is intended to be useful to those interested in this process. Whether you’re just beginning to write fiction or poetry, or whether you’re an established writer, or else simply someone who loves reading and is intrigued by the unconscious processes that go into imaginative writing, I hope there’ll be something on this site to interest you. On the Bookshelf page there’s a list of recommended creative writing books, as well as other good reads.

I’d love to hear from you, so do send me a note through the comments box on this page, if you’d like to. I’m thinking of maybe setting up an image bank at some point, displaying a selection of short, vivid imagery sent in by visitors to the site who’ve tried out any of the writing exercises which appear here – see the On Writing page and my Drowning in Imagery blog post. So if you’re happy to share your most surprising, original images with others, please send me short (max 30 words) images born out of your flow writing. I’d also be fascinated to hear what you think of my novel, Breathing in Colour.

Enjoy exploring and I hope you’ll find something that interests you!

Clare