I’m rather fond of winter, mainly because it gives me an excuse to eat loads of comfort food and drink Guinness and red wine, and there’s footy and my darling Sydney Swans, of course. But I also get to wear wonderfully daggy

My snuggly new ugg boots

clothes like ugg boots, tracky daks and windcheaters. One of the great perks of being a writer: you don’t have to dress up.

Winter is also the perfect season for writing. I can snuggle up in my office with the heating on and pump out words without feeling remotely guilty that I should be outside, playing around in the sunshine. And writing flat out is exactly what I’ve been doing. The end is nigh on the first draft of my next novel, and while this is a very, very ugly first draft and there is a LOT of fixing up to do, I’m still excited about hitting The End. Although, in this case, I won’t actually be hitting The End at the end because I’ve already written it.

Rather a change of method for me. My process tends to be linear – I start with the opening chapter and keep on writing the story until it’s told, and has come to a natural conclusion – but about two thirds of the way through this manuscript I managed to get myself in a bit of a head-mess (nothing unusual there) and decided to perk things up by writing the last five chapters. Seems to have worked because things flowed after that and, I think, bar some tweaking and layering, the end will stay as it is.

So if you hear some whooping and hollering toward the end of the week, that will be me, celebrating completion of this book’s first draft.

Then the fun stuff will really begin.