The Most Important Problem a Writer Faces Is...

...What to wear to their launch party.

I trolled round the shops at the weekend trying on launch party clothes. Should I go dressy as if for a garden party? What about trendy? I could try to look cool, although edgy is beyond me - I know my limits. I could dress down - hey, launch parties, two a penny - or up - Omigod I've written a book, woo-hoo!

Then there's the cost. Writers don't earn much at the best of times, whatever you may hear about JK Rowling and multi-million pound advances, and times are hard in publishingland. Do I want to spend money on a new outfit which I may never wear again, when I should really put it towards buying a new cistern for the downstairs loo? Yes, yes, my heart screeches, the loo can wait. Besides, the launch party is going to coincide with my birthday, and surely I can have a new birthday suit, as it were. But my head is determined to be sensible.

I compromise. I will buy something new only if it's really special, then waste hours of writing time going to shops I never usually go to in the hope of finding something special. Nothing - although I learn that I can just squeeze into a size 14 at Top Shop whereas I'm a petite size 8 at Country Casuals.

So, at time of writing, I have nothing to wear. Well, that will be good for publicity if nothing else...

Come to the launch party for Kissing Mr Wrong, 6.30pm on 20th May at Waterstones, Milsom Street, Bath. All welcome, but please ring 01225 448515 to let them have an idea of numbers.

Things that go wrong at Launch Parties - My Mother

My mother didn't come to my first launch party - too busy doing something vitally important like organising the laundry.

She came to the second one, for Nice Girls Do. I know she did because I saw her for a moment, waved, but when I went to speak to her, she seemed to have vanished. No one knew where she'd gone to. Afterwards she explained that she'd got confused over the time, misread her watch and thought she was about miss the last bus home so had scuttled home. Coincidentally, just in time to catch Cranford on the telly.

For the third one I was insistent. She was to come to the launch party, and stay. We would collect her, and then drive her home. She agreed, though it has to be said, rather reluctantly.

"You must be terribly proud," one of my friends tried as an opening gambit. There was a long long pause.

"I suppose I am," came the answer.

She then proceeded to demonstrate her pride in her daughter's achievements during my speech. I could see her throughout, helping herself to books off the shelf and flicking through them. (She later explained herself by saying she heard me speak every day, whereas she wasn't in a bookshop every day.)

I'd given up by the time A Single to Rome came round, but to my surprise she pitched up AND BOUGHT A BOOK. Not one of mine, admittedly, but she was showing willing.

And so to another launch party. Will she come? Will she stay? Will she perhaps buy a book? Will it be one of mine? All will be revealed on the 20th.

Come to the launch party for Kissing Mr Wrong, 6.30pm on 20th May at Waterstones, Milsom Street, Bath. All welcome, but please ring 01225 448515 to let them have an idea of numbers.

Things that go wrong at Launch Parties - Nicolas Cage

When we were talking about dates for the launch party of A Single to Rome we realised that the best date for me, the book and Waterstones was the same day that the Christmas Market was going to open in Bath, and Nicolas Cage was coming to turn on the Christmas lights. In our innocence, we thought that while people might have problems parking, it would attract more people.

I happened to be teaching a class that finished just before six and started to stroll up towards Milsom Street and Waterstones. A lot of people were milling about but hey, it was the first day of the Christmas Market and it's always popular. I wasn't concerned until I came to the first barrier. The man in the fluorescent tabard was adamant. I couldn't go through. I explained where I was trying to get to and he pointed out that the platform where Nicolas Cage was going to perform the ceremony was stationed on Milsom Street, right in front of Waterstones. "You'll never make it,' he cheerfully informed me, obviously infused with the spirit of Christmas.

So I tried elsewhere. I tried the back lanes. No hope. I went up Broad Street, trying to cut through the upmarket shopping centre. No chance there. I circled round the centre of Bath, but there was no room at the inn. Hard faced policemen Perhaps if I'd had a donkey in tow someone would have taken pity on me. I spent the start of my launch party sitting on some hard stone steps surrounded by people wearing glow-in-the-dark reindeer antlers.

And the thing that really, really rankles? One of my friends told a policeman at the barricades she had a launch party to go to urgently, and she was escorted through the crowds, like Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. Huh! It should have been ME!

Come to the launch party for Kissing Mr Wrong, 6.30pm on 20th May at Waterstones, Milsom Street, Bath. All welcome, but please ring 01225 448515 to let them have an idea of numbers.

Party Invite

Well it's 2010, there must be another book, and another launch party. The new book is Kissing Mr Wrong, officially out on 13th May, but getting a launch party at Waterstones, Bath on the 20th May. I am now terrified

a) that no one will turn up.

b) that three people will turn up and it will be horribly embarrassing.

c) but at least I know those three will be my family so they've seen more horribly embarrassing moments from me before. Worse will be that ten people will turn and so I will be horribly embarrassed in front of ten people who aren't my family.

d) lots of people will turn up but realise half way they've come to the wrong book launch and sneak out.

e) lots of people will turn up and buy lots of books, just none of them mine.

So if you can be lured to Bath for the launch party of Kissing Mr Wrong, there would be a warm, possibly slightly crazed-eyed, welcome for you. You don't have to let them or me know you're coming, but it would help re preparing the alcohol supplies, of which we don't want to run out.

Come to the launch party for Kissing Mr Wrong, 6.30pm on 20th May at Waterstones, Milsom Street, Bath. All welcome, but please ring 01225 448515 to let them have an idea of numbers.