I wanted to write something on Friday about The Girl with Glass Feet finally being available, but opened up the blog form and instantly got blog block, which sounds more horrible than it is.  I think it was difficult to say anything because it was quietly overwhelming.  The good folk at Blackwell Broad Street in Oxford had put the book out on display and it was very special to be able to go in and see it there.  The publishers, Atlantic, did such a good job of making it into a pretty object, and that really paid off when the books were in a little pile looking all silvery and wintry.  It was weird, too, because underneath those front covers were all the words of the story.  If you had x-ray vision you could see them all just waiting to be read.  I got very introspective after that about the nature of writing and the journey those words had come on from the point when they were just loose ideas to the point where they were a finished book on sale in a shop.  For instance, I used to work in that shop and first wrote some of those words on my lunch break in the staff room.  So those particular words had journeyed all the way down three flights of stairs to be there, while others had come from Lancaster, Dorset, or just down the road.  It was May Day morning, and if you’ve ever been around Oxford first thing on the 1st May, you’ll know it’s full of drunk people who’ve stayed up all night to see a choir sing on one of the bridges.  So the city has a surreal feeling to it, like it’s both 8 in the morning and 11 at night simultaneously.  That felt quite appropriate.  It’s early days for the book, but the end of a long process for me.  In short – a very special May Day.