I love being an author. Getting to spend hours in the heads of my characters, to construct stories and find the most compelling way of sharing them with other people is such a pleasure and a privilege. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m complaining in any way, but it can also be quite a solitary experience. That’s why nights like this week’s visit to the Books and Bubbles event at Sobo Sommelier are such an important part of what I do.

Books and Bubbles is a new(ish) monthly event – last Tuesday of every month – organised by my friend and fellow author Alex Stone. At the most recent one, Alex interviewed me about my books, my writing process and my journey as a writer. There was plenty of time on either side of the formal interview for mixing with people and chatting, catching up with old friends and making new ones, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Of course, I also got to talk at length about Dead Man Singing and Foul and Fair, as well as providing some advance information about Imogen Imagine.

The audience was a mixture of other authors and avid readers, all of us keen to talk about books (in this case, mine!) and drink wine. It’s a common misconception that authors are fiercely competitive, constantly looking to do each other down and scramble to the top of the heap. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Bournemouth is blessed with a thriving writing community - brought together in part by the wonderful Bournemouth Writing Festival - and I’ve loved becoming part of it over the last couple of years. In my experience, authors are hugely supportive of one another. For one thing, we know the amount of hard work that goes into writing a novel, and for another it’s not as if we’re battling it out for a finite number of readers. If someone buys books, they tend to buy books repeatedly, and they don’t limit themselves to just one author. If you write a different genre of book to me, we’re not in competition for the same readers. Even if you do write the same kind of books as me, if someone enjoys your books then there’s a good chance they’ll like and buy mine too. Readers of, for example, crime fiction may well have a favourite author, but you won’t meet many who limit themselves to only reading that single writer’s output.

Writing can be a lonely job, and nothing quite beats the thrill of someone telling you that they’ve enjoyed something you’ve written. Thank you to the people I met on Tuesday who did just that, and thanks to the people – a very pleasing number of them – who took the opportunity to buy one or both of my books (I hope you enjoy them). I had a lot of fun and left feeling hugely encouraged and energised. I can't wait for the next one.