Big Break Diary: The novelist

BBC News Online's Big Break Diaries follow a group of people hunting for their big break in the arts and entertainment world.

This week, novelist Tom Barnes uses the end of term to get in some quality writing time.

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18 November

Go on the big Anti-War demo in London. Demonstrations are a bit like going to church: you don't agree with about 80% of what is said; it probably doesn't do any good that you've gone; most of it is meaningless ritual; but you feel somehow better for having done it.

Trafalgar Square is packed: the papers say that 5,000 people have turned up. I thought it was more like 50,000. You can't believe anything you read in the papers.

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24 November

Finally finish reading (for research, you understand) David Icke's And The Truth Shall Set You Free, which in its political content is surprisingly convincing (he doesn't mention lizards anywhere). The religious-scientific stuff is all a bit Gnostic-Manichean for me, and less convincing.

The main thrust of the political bit, though, echoes a lot of the themes I am dealing with (in fictional terms) in Enemy Within.

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3 December

Paul Lyalls rings to ask if I want a poetry gig supporting Nigel Planer at Express Excess in February. Do I ever! He says to make it all funny. I've got to write some new funny poems.

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6 December

Spike has another thought about the sitcom, Past Caring, that we're trying to write for BBC Choice, and e-mails me the results. Mostly improved. I touch up in places.

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14 December

School term finishes, and at last I have an opportunity to get back to writing Enemy Within, which has taken a backseat since September.

There are a large number of unfinished novelists who are teachers, because it takes so much energy to teach at all well, and I'm taking home about six to eight hours' marking every week. At the end of that, three hours spent slavering over a hot WP to write about spies in the 1970s is hardly relaxation.

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17 December

Write a few more scenes for Enemy, including completing the sex scene I started in September (longest fore-play in history), which turns out completely differently from how it was planned. I do like letting the characters decide their own fate, rather than predetermine all of it. Jonathan Coe would have a heart attack.

Get a message from Andrew at Fit2Fill, discussing changes to the new Kissing the Kebab for February. Am given strict instructions not to discuss them with anyone outside the group.

Within the group, there is some consternation, too, as the changes are, on one level, quite major. On another level, they're quite handleable, and I can certainly see a lot of potential in the new style. It does mean, though, a slightly different style of writing. Bummer.

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19 December

The last of the old-style shows for Kissing the Kebab, with us doing a half-hour slot and the other group doing the second half-hour slot.

Goes down an absolute storm, despite Charles having mostly lost his voice and one sketch about which both Andrew and Brian said "Drop it: it won't be in the slightest bit funny without the other sketches" getting the biggest laugh of the night. Producers! What do they know?

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25 December

Apart from the return of the cold, one of the best Christmas days ever! No presents! No turkey! No children! Very little Christmas pud!

Watch my friend Anna's excellent animation Hamilton Mattress.

The only thing that would have made it better was if Christmas had been cancelled entirely, and let me get on with a bit of work. Bah humbug!

Forward to Fat Cow Day! And a merry Christmas to both of my fans.