Editors 'R' Us... now with added cash!

So, the real belated news, told smugly while munching Portugal's greatest export of a sunny Sunday morning? The real news is a change of job and a complete and utter change of life for yours truly. Shortly before I travelled back to the US for Thanksgiving, I was given the heads up by the Editorial Assistant for Fiction that she was changing careers and going travelling in between the scenes, leaving her position gloriously vacant. Attempting a cross-departmental move in a fourteen-person company is something to be considered, as it does have the potential to backfire horribly, but not so here! And thank Christ for that, as I just don't think I could take it if this job went wrong. I've invested too much in being here to have to pack up now.

Organising the move was extremely stressful, most of it masterminded while sitting on the floor outside the VIP Lounge at Detroit Airport, stealing their Wi-Fi. (A lovely Japanese man and his wife invited me to come in just as I was finished, because they were allowed to have a guest, which was sweet.) But come January, I was back in the same lovely publishing house, full-time and fully engaged as Editorial Assistant for Fiction. Publicity, particularly part-time, is simply not me – not here, anyway. I have difficulty getting into the national press here, although it will come with time. More of a Guardian and books press girl, myself, but of course publicity requires so much more. The other thing about publicity at its lower levels is that it’s simply not brain work: strategy, planning, organisation, yes, but hard analysis, working with texts? Notsomuch.

So now, I actually read and write for most of the week- submissions, nothing finished. I now understand why editors have never read the backlist. Fantastic experience, and it really feels like a great match between academic thought and knowing the market. It’s extremely exciting. I just can’t believe that it took me a year and four months to get back to Plan A, and how long and awful that time was.

But now, now, my friends, I’m enjoying something of a revival. I’m back in the world, going to the theatre, concerts, (that's Willie Nelson, you heathen) buying nice food with the yummy mummies in Primrose Hill… smiling. Extraordinary stuff. Kind of like real life, but without the Irish people and the sea. Will keep me going in the meantime, anyway.

Will report, albeit somewhat cryptically, on what I’m reading as I go along. Meanwhile, enjoy the pics of my new, improved life and times in London. Congratulations in order to the team behind a well-thought out exhibition in a spooky locale, Art and Pigeon Pie.

See, I told you I was doing stuff.

Having no money doesn't make you less able to attend great free events, just less willing, so I really have no excuse for not having done more of this kind of thing before, except that I was using every spare minute to freelance myself into another £60 or looking for a new job. Before I had quality time with a laptop, and now... I have art and life and food. It's turning into a good year, I say in a small voice.