It’s got to be seriously annoying if you’re a writer, stuck at home, in isolation, with all the writing tools at your fingertips – laptop, Remington Model 12, pencil, paper, desk, kitchen table, whatever – and the words won’t come.

Christmas is soon upon us and there are many things to do. One of those things for a writer with a novel to air is pitching said novel to agents and publishers. That’s what is happening right now with my crime novel, The Fruits of Rashness.

I couldn’t really believe it when I received the news my debut novel, The Fruits of Rashness, had been longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award – especially as there were only nine other names on the longlist, which was drawn from many hundreds of submissions.

I said some time ago that I’d returned to the draft of an early novel. Many months and several drafts later, it’s done! The characters have sharpened up their acts, the plot has twisted like a corkscrew into a reasonable Malbec and the one-liners have dutifully presented themselves for inspection.

I was delighted to learn last week that I’d been awarded second place prize in the Steyning Festival short story competition with my story Rebuffed. The competition was organised by West Sussex Writers.

There I was, editing my novel and working on some short stories, when from out of the literary undergrowth a novella sprang. It was on me before I could defend myself: I was too slow to take evasive action; too weak to wrestle it to the ground.