Julie is not available right now…she is eating an elephant.

I got my first book deal back in the middle of the pandemic when life was just starting to open up again. Living in Wales, I was actually still in lockdown as it happened - the culmination of years of not daring to try, because the arts weren’t for kids who had worked their way off a council estate, combined with other years of being brave enough to try and getting rejected. (70 or so for my first attempt at a novel)

Eventually I made it - signing a two book deal with Penguin in June 2020, but the making it especially later in life, meant that I wanted to make the most of the opportunity. So I did what I’ve always done - I WORKED MY ASS OFF.

I applied the same lessons that got me off my council estate and into university. I didn’t stop and I didn’t rest. I was too scared to take a breath in case someone took my chance away from me. I think this is very common for people from working class backgrounds. We know how to work hard. We often don’t know how to feel like we deserve to be in the room, or take our time admiring the view. We push on and on no matter what the cost.

My second book deal happened almost automatically over lunch two years later as I’d just delivered my second novel 73 Dove Street. My editor and I drank wine and chatted about my idea for a book set in Berlin that turned into Circus of Mirrors (OUT NOW IN ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS) and I re-signed for another two books.

This month I delivered my top secret Book 4 on time, in addition to launching Circus of Mirrors. That’s 4 books in 4 years pretty much without a break.

I tell you this to show that dreams can come true and that they are bloody hard work.

For reasons that will become clear when we announce Book 4 next year, I was under time pressure to deliver quickly. This meant that during the last 13 months, I’ve written both Circus of Mirrors and Book 4 (that’s 200,000 words) in addition to edits, a paperback launch, a hardback launch and a house renovation so trust me when I tell you that I am tired.

It has been the literary equivalent of eating an elephant. I’m guessing if you ever tried a forkful of elephant, it would make the task seem impossible , endlessly time consuming, and almost certainly would make you feel a bit sick at the finish.

This week I’ve been trying to get in touch with my body, as my brain has become disconnected from it, during that all too common ‘feral’ phase of finishing a book, where you can’t do anything except write. Coming back to earth is not dissimilar to landing an aeroplane.

A flight feels very smooth as you’re coasting above the clouds where the sky is always blue. It’s only as you descend back to earth that you feel the pressure change, the turbulence of a machine screaming through the air and that slightly discombobulating feeling that you’re falling both slowly, but too fast for comfort.

That’s where I am this week. My brain is looking for work. It’s used to work, like an alcoholic is used to drink. It doesn’t know what to do without tasks and deadlines because for the past four years, I’ve moved from one book to another. In the weeks where my editor had whichever book I was working on, I’d be researching or thinking about the next one. Planning and reading up on the history. Thinking . Thinking. Thinking. My brain is so very tired of thinking about books.

It’s been exhausting but I didn’t really notice because I was flying above the clouds. Oh boy have I noticed it now.

I’m taking next year off from writing. Of course I have editing to do quite soon, and next year will bring a paperback launch and a campaign for Book 4, beginning the run up to its launch in 2026.

There will be cover reveals and title announcements and all that fun stuff but I will be trying to land my little brain in a sweet meadow with nothing but sunshine and birds chirping because I am building a better balanced life.

It’s easy to give too much in publishing. You don’t want to leave a stone unturned, so you go on endlessly doing all the things that wrap around getting published, regardless of how tired you are. You work for yourself so nobody will ever say STOP AND REST.

So I’m telling you right now - STOP AND REST.

Most of the stuff we do as ‘extras’ in publishing is useless. It doesn’t sell one book but the problem is that nobody wants to be the one to stop doing it, so we go on dropping proofs to bookshops and doing small events or podcasts - all of which mean double or triple that time to prepare or travel, and it makes zero difference to your book sales. Yet we carry on doing it because we want to be good and helpful. God forbid women should actually say I’m tired and I am unavailable right now.

So I am saying it.

After four years and four books, I am tired and I am unavailable right now.

My three books however are available in all good bookshops and Book 4 will be out in 2026.