The Official S. J. Bolton Blog

Copyedits for my fifth book, Dead Scared, have just arrived by special delivery, reminding me that there comes a point in any book's gestation, when you have to let it go. And copyediting is getting very close.

Copyediting is about house style (why do Transworld spell realize with a z?) its about grammar and punctuation, matters of consistency (if his eyes are blue in chapter one, they probably shouldn't be grey by chapter ten) and picking up daft mistakes (apparently, there is no nobel prize for mathematics - thank you Nancy!) By the copyediting stage, all major changes should have been made. Of course, if anything still isn't working, you rely upon a good copyeditor to pick it up and point it out and mine has been known to do so before now. But the message is very clear. By this stage, the book is written, polishing is what we do now.

And that is scary. I write every book to be my best ever, and I know that to be the norm among crime writers. Each time I start on chapter one, I'm aiming for the Gold Dagger and all the time I'm working on a book, I tell myself I've got time, I can still improve, its getting better with every draft. I don't send it my agent until I think its perfect and publishable. She invariably sends it back with a "could do better" report. When it goes to my editor, it's a work of literary genius (in my eyes). Her editorial reports are usually longer than the books themselves.

All that's fine. (Well, now it is - in the old days the air would be blue in editing season!) The process is about getting the book better and ultimately no one benefits from that more than I do. Especially when the creative geniuses get to work, like Claire Ward of Transworld, who has designed every cover for me and who definitely gets better with every book. She surpassed herself this time, giving me not only stunning graphics but the title too. Thank you, Claire.

But there comes a point when even I have to let go, when I've simply run out of time to improve any further, when I'm forced to accept that the book cannot ever be made perfect and I just have to hope its good enough. Scary? Absolutely bloody terrifying!

What doesn't help this time is that Dead Scared is - wait for it - a sequel. Never done one of those before! Stand-alones are what come naturally to me, if characters achieve their happy(ish) ending, I like to leave them, clutching their injuries to stem the blood flow and limping into the sunset. I wish them well, my literary children, they wave goodbye and fade into memory.

But Lacey Flint and Mark Joesbury were never going to do that. At the end of Now You See Me, I had no sense that their story was over. Their journey together had just begun and, so fascinated by them was I, that I simply had to be there to record their ongoing chapters. And so they're back: tortured, troubled Lacey and the man who adores her. And since I'm now in the business of nearly-new characters, I figured I'd take the beautiful and fragile Evi Oliver off the shelf, give her a dust down and see how she shapes up in a brand new adventure.

(And yes, before my in-box gets flooded, Harry is back too!)

Dead Scared is the story of Cambridge in the dead of winter, when the nights are at their longest and coldest, and when the city's young women, away from home for the first time, find their deepest fears coming out to play.

Available to preorder on Amazon: Dead Scared - you will be.

So does my bump look big in this?

I had a salutary lesson this week in the dangers of social media: the message you intend to broadcast is not necessarily the one people receive.

It all started when a fellow school-mum (who I shouldn't name, to spare her blushes, but yes, Julia, I do mean you!) sent a round-robin message to all her female Facebook friends asking them to post their birthdays, in a secret female-only code - as their status. It was all part of Breast Cancer Awareness, she explained, women the world over will be doing it, men won't have a clue what we're on about, and it will do wonders for world-wide awareness of this terrible illness.

Well, admittedly, I'd had a couple of glasses at this stage and it seemed like a bit of a wheeze. I double-checked the secret code…

I was born in May, so have to write "I'm six weeks." (Had I been born in October, it would have been "I'm fourteen weeks," - you get the idea.) Then you post what you're craving, which changes according to the particular date. So, bold as brass, on my Facebook status I wrote:

"I'M SIX WEEKS AND CRAVING PEANUT-BUTTER CUPS"

Then I closed down Facebook and went to bed.

Next morning, I wake to find the world thinks I'm pregnant. My Facebook page is filled with congratulatory messages. I email Julia in alarm. "Oh yes," she says, "that happened to me too, most people demanding to know who the father was!"  Turns out this secret women-only code is a bit too secret!!!

Rather bemused, I joke about it on Twitter. 'Appear to have announced to the world I'm pregnant," I tweet. 'Will I ever learn?"

Apparently not, because blow me down, if they don't all take it seriously too! The happy news gets re-tweeted around the globe and my in-box fills with messages from people who are really happy for me and determined to advise on what I can and can't do in my condition!

Blood and sand, you lot! I'm fifty! It would be a minor medical miracle!

So there I am, in the midst of a phantom pregnancy, really not sure what to do about it. I mean, where will it all end? Are people knitting booties as I write?

I could issue an official denial, possibly via Transworld's publicity office, but given that I'm neither the Duchess of Cambridge nor Cheryl Cole, I might sound a bit up myself. 'Quietly let it die down,' advises Mr B, once he's stopped laughing. I'm tempted, but some people have long memories. Sooner or later, we're going to meet up and it will take only one well-meant pat on the stomach and a comment about how I'm blooming and then fur will fly!

It seems I have no option but to come clean. So, thank you, everyone, for your good wishes; thank you for being happy for me; thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for believing, (or pretending to believe) that such an event is possible, but I'm afraid the only happy event I'm expecting next spring is the delivery of a glossy new Bantam Press hardback called DEAD SCARED.

Note to self: In future, stay off Facebook when you've had a drink!

The village is having a ball tonight, in the grounds of the mediaeval manor. We all plan to drink and dance till dawn, which, in my condition, will be absolutely fine!

When my sisters and I were girls, our maternal grandmother, Nellie, taught us the ancient country art of foraging. (We were working class Northerners in the 1960s -  we had to make our own fun!) It began in August when the winberries * ripened and great swathes of the moors surrounding our cotton-mill town turned the deep purplish-blue of a fresh bruise. Off we'd set, we four Lancashire lasses aged between six and sixty, to gather in the tiny, sweet berries that made pies with a flavour all of their own. No freezers in those days, just a mass baking and a general sharing-out among the neighbours who would all reciprocate days later.

Then came plums, damsons, greengages and sloes, all to be baked, bottled and fermented. In late September our stained and scarred fingers would carry home bags full of blackberries. Apples and pears were harder - we had to rely on adventurous boys scrumping our town's posher gardens - then came the nuts as the autumn colours deepened.

Forty years later, I still can't see fruit ripening on a tree or bush without that primitive pull in my gut telling me to gather it in, preserve it in ice or sugar, hoard it away because the winter is coming and you never, ever know.

My son doesn't really get it yet. And my husband, despite being a country boy himself, certainly doesn't, but this week I have two partners in crime. My parents are staying with us for a few days and completely share my love of going out and finding our own food. We've even done a bit of scrumping. The damsons currently in my freezer were definitely growing in someone's garden.

Foraging is one of the reasons I love this time of year so much. Another is that in these first few days of September nature seems to give up her very best. We still have the summer's warmth, late flowers in the gardens, the soft golden light, but we also have berries, shining like jewels in the hedgerows, trees so laden down with fruit their branches scrape the ground and daily reminders that, no matter how badly we treat her, our mother planet has endless patience, infinite forgiveness and like a kind and benevolent parent, will always take care of us.

And so I pick blackberries and I remember my grandmother Nellie, whose enthusiasm for life I so much wish I'd inherited and I think of her aunt, Alice, a sprightly lady of 80+ who often used to forage with us and who was never without a story - most of them pure invention although she swore blind they were true. Maybe I inherited a thing or two from her!

September is also the month when I send my son off to school, in his crisp and clean new uniform, and settle myself down to gather in the ideas that have been drifting around for the last few months, preserve them on paper (OK, on the hard-drive, but it doesn't sound so lyrical) and hope the harvest is a good one.

And maybe one day, if we can learn to look after our home planet the way she looks after us, I will have grown grandchildren who will remember me as the odd granny, who told scary stories, and who made the most wonderful jam.

* East Lancashire name for the fruit more commonly known as the bilberry and, in  recent years, the blueberry.