Marie Marshall

“… The fog is still yellow and thick. I can see maybe twenty yards either way. The house across the street is a vague oblong, the parallel lines of the sidewalk fade into the general gloom. There’s a thickening, a kind of shift in the fog, like it’s swirling, like it’s trying to contain more than it actually can. And there’s a smell in the air I don’t like. Downhill there are man-size shapes forming in the fog, figures walking towards us – three, maybe four. I look back uphill – figures there too, and a couple across the road. The house door creaks, and there’s another figure standing in the doorway. Maybe a dozen of these figures are slowly closing in on us. I grip the broken chair leg as E.J. moves round me and we stand back-to-back…”

Just how excited can an author get about nearing publication? Do all the big ‘names’ feel as cool as they look? Do they think “Well, there goes another one”, and wait for the offers of interviews from the Times Literary Supplement and the BBC to roll in? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I am excited about getting novel No.3 published as I was about getting No.1 out there. I have only twenty-four hours to wait – tomorrow is the big day!