A sudden calm

Well, there were moments I thought I might never make it, moments in which the idea of draggging my weary wine-addled braincells across seemingly endless virtual tundra towards the temporary succour of one more virtual oasis (if that isn’t too mixed a geographical metaphor) was simply too exhausting to contemplate. And then a set of new questions would arrive, and I’d read them, and be sparked by them, and think OK, let’s see what I can do with these. I’m talking, of course, about my Cyclone tour, the aim of which was to sell as many copies of my collection The Scent of Cinnamon as was humanly possible without its author moving from his keyboard. I don’t know whether it achieved that aim or not – though, I hope it did – but it achieved the secondary, unvoiced, aim of forcing me to think very hard about what I do and why I do it: the equivalent of an MA in creative writing without spending a penny. My thanks to all the wonderful bloggers involved, and my final thanks to my final interviewer, renaissance man, Wendell Ricketts, writer, editor of the ongoing project and anthology devoted to working-class gay writers, Everything I Have is Blue, translator of, among other things, the theatre of Natalia Ginzburg (The Wrong Door), astute and prolific reviewer, and author of one of the very few English-language Italian-based blogs that seem to live in the same Italy I live in. You can find his questions, and my answers, here. Phew.