Last night went pretty well, there was a good turn out up at uni and the readers were all great. It was still a shame that mum couldn't make it as her piece of life writing would have been a nice contrast to the poetry and prose, and just as interesting. But we did the best we could without her! Nathan was pretty chuffed with how many copies of the anthology we sold (plus the ones sold the night before in London), which is all money that gets pumped back into the egg box coffers for more fantastic books. Fab!

I have spent most of the day writing, which is good. Passed the 30,000-word mark for Furnace 3 today, which is a huge milestone psychologically as I always see that as the half-way mark (even though the books have tended to be a bit longer). The story has also reached a vital turning point at exactly the place I wanted it to, which is cool. It's definitely been the hardest of the three to write so far, but I'm really enjoying it and things will only get more exciting in the second half...

Now I'm just putting off doing a bit of Japanese revision. Yup, I have started learning Japanese, mainly in the hope that one day I'll have a book translated into the language and turned into a film by Studio Ghibli (the latter in my top five of the most amazing dreams I can think of). This will be my fourth week and it's also EXAM TIME! I think it's a little early for a test, personally, but then I'm not the teacher! I'll crack on with it in a bit, but for now here are some things I can say about myself in Japanese:

Watashi no namae wa Gordon desu - My name is Gordon!
Watashi no shigoto wa sakka desu - I am a writer!
Watashi wa Igirisu-jin desu - I am British!
Watashi no sumai wa Norwich desu - My home is in Norwich!
Watashi wa eigo to nihongo o hanashimasu - I speak English and Japanese... (kind of!)
Watashi wa kekkon shite imasen - I am not married!
Watashi no dengwa bangou wa ... desu - My telephone number is (now that would be telling)!

Anyway, I'd better go and get revising. Wish me luck for my test!

Sayonara!