I received my first copy of In-human as a book and I did not imagine the excitement it would bring – it’s been such a long and hard time trying to get it published that there was no joy left in it for me anymore, I didn’t think so anyway. And then I got to hold this beautiful book and I fell in love again. Went home immediately and read it from start to finish in one day. I read it like it was the first time, which sounds crazy but I could not put it down. I had to keep turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. I really did not expect this to happen because of course I’m familiar with all the events. But reading a bound book is, I found out, a very different experience from reading a stack of loose pages.

In-human is like a fairy tale for me – I have been able to read it countless times without ever losing the joy of it but by the last edit I was over the whole thing. And this made me sad because we’ve had such a long relationship. I started writing this novel twelve years ago. And the story continues. The novel I’m writing now, How much the human body contains, is Coralee’s take on events. She’s the antagonist in In-human and for me the hardest character to get to know, so I had to start writing this novel to find out about her.

At first (like for six years) I struggled not just because In-human wasn’t finished yet, which was significant, but also because Coralee’s a very dark and complicated character. Often it’s been extremely hard for me to sit with her story but in the last few weeks I had this amazing insight into what drives her and so now it’s got easier for me to let her speak. She’s remarkable and I hope she keeps talking. The excerpts in this blog are some of the things she’s said so far.

In-human is 288 pages long, the font is Fairlight and I think the story has got an excellent pace and is very funny in parts. It’s also sad. Each time I’ve read it I’ve found out something new, so it’s a simple story but there’s a lot to it. In-human is published by Transit Lounge and will be released around the start of April 2010. I’ll post the launch date when there is one.