I've just signed my first autograph... but the location was an odd one!
When you're a writer, you dream of the scenario where someone asks for your autograph... You smile, blush slightly, and pretend with all your might that you haven't been practising your signature for such a time as this, honest...
I wasn't expecting to be asked to sign anything yet - especially as my book isn't published till 12th November. But at least, I thought, when it did happen, it would be in some swanky location with accompanying slow-mo camera, wind machine and string quartet.
As it turned out, this was not to be the case. I was, in fact, in Cubicle 17 of the A&E department at Russell's Hall Hospital, wearing a very fetching backless gown emblazoned with the legend, 'For Hospital Use Only' (I mean, as if you're likely to want to steal it... Take a deep breath, darling, I've a backless gown from A&E and I'm not afraid to use it!), awaiting the visit of a doctor to find out why the whole of the right-hand side of my body had swollen up and my pulse rate had rocketed.
Before the doctor turned up, a very nice student doctor arrived to take some blood (as you do) - in the process of it all she asked me what had happened to me and I explained that I'd been working stupidly for the past two weeks trying to get the edits done on my first novel. Turns out she's a massive fan of women's contemporary fiction and was really excited to hear about my book! So, when she was about to leave, she asked for my autograph and took the details of my novel!
In an ideal world, I would have preferred to be (a) fully clothed; (b) not swollen up and panicking because the nurses outside my cubicle were talking loudly about, "the suspected stroke in Cubicle 17"; and (c) in an altogether more agreeable location - but there you go.
Ah, the glittering world of showbiz, eh?!
