One of the unexpected (by me) side-effects of becoming a writer was that suddenly there were a few people out there who became interested in what I had to say about writing.

The first time we experience something, the more powerful it's effect on us. This is true of many things: new love, broken hearts, deaths, the first time we achieve something special for ourselves. I think it's also that way with books, or a piece of music or art.

Is it too late to revise New Year resolutions? Mine was to be regular with this blog, but because writing is fairly immersive, it's hard to pull my head out of whatever I'm working on to talk about something pertinent and relevant.

I always seem to start these blogs with an apology for tardiness, so let's skip that. Take it as written and read. These past few weeks I've been knee deep in the muck of the trenches, Western Front, 1916. I've spent so much time reading about the ghastly conditions the soldiers endured that my body went out in sympathy; I got ulcers, a sty in my right eye and a head cold. Fortunately no trench-foot, or lice, and no-one is laying artillery barrages on my house.

I had a good question from a reader recently, and being shy of a blog topic, latched onto it like a squid who's been bathing in super-glue. The question went like this:

Hi there! April was a heck of a month with four weekends out of town including ten days in Australia. Lovely time catching up with friends and family. As you can imagine, not so much writing time, but I'm back in Auckland now, feet under desk, ready to work.

"The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year". That's the first sentence on their Wikipedia page (which illustrates the depth of my research: hey, I'm busy with meeting two book deadlines!).

This may sound a little off-piste, but stick with me.

Hey, sorry I've not posted one of these for a few weeks - I've been immersed in a new book, and barely paying attention to things like blogging, tweeting and Facebook. Which is kinda the point of this blog, actually.

So, it's the new year, and the weather's been lovely so we've had a few barbeques and dinner parties. At one of them, someone asked me whether being a writer was like in the movies, which she characterised as follows: