It’s a little hard to talk about the year to come although I feel very excited… because things aren’t pinned down yet. One thing that is is a series of covers I’m doing for a fantasy novel trilogy. I’m working on the roughs right now and trying out all sorts of ideas. I love reading a manuscript with a big rubber band around it, long before everyone else. It’s like having a back stage pass, but for books.

What is a little up in the air is three picture books that are on the cards for the next couple of years – or as well as I can fit them in with the boys. Two are books I have written. I found it much easier to write than draw last year – I guess because you can review text while walking around a park. But you can’t draw. Try as you might… it doesn’t work. So – writing. I’m really pleased with them and they have both come from little scenes that I created in the Moleskines, for no reason whatsoever. That is particularly exciting. That means that instead of coming up with an idea for a book and then creating a story etc, I have worked the other way around. Drawn and accidentally come across a character and a scene that I love, then let her tell me her, or their, stories. It may not sound very earthshattering but it’s quite new for me, and the style will be completely what I love to do. No hybrids, no almost-theres. Just lots of pen and my imagination dong loop-the-loops.

And the third is someone else’s story – a lovely one, that I need to think about some more to know if I am the right one for it.

So it’s all exciting but not pinned down. Meetings need to happen with people behind closed doors and numbers will matter a lot. I just want to hear some big YESs so I can say yippee and get working!

But as yet, it feels a little like conjuring and directing fish. In mid air. I hope I get yesses. It’s not natural for them to hover up there for too long. I might lose one!