It’s the first weekend of the school holidays, so naturally the weather is disgusting. All thoughts of walking along to the castle and enjoying an ice cream in the sun have been shelved.

It’s exactly the sort of day to stay in and read a book – or write one. Choosing the latter, Offspring and I are plotting. O has a story to write and so do I – and we’re having great fun bouncing ideas off each other.

I’m normally quite precious about sharing ideas because I think they’re delicate and easy to ruin – like trying to remember a dream, discussing a story out loud before it’s gained some strength might just make the bubble burst and it’ll be gone forever.

But the Post-Its and Sharpies are out, the white board is scribbled and stuck all over and my next book is actually in better shape than it’s ever been before (it’s a failing of mine that I’ll start writing – all enthusiasm – before I actually know fully what the story’s going to be, only to come to a screeching halt round about 20k words when I run out of ideas).

I’ve got another couple of weeks before I’ll let myself put finger to keyboard (another wip to revise, then a holiday away to recharge batteries), but I’m getting so excited it’s going to be hard to wait – which is just as it should be.

Can you beat that for a way to spend a wet weekend?