It's now a full week since I gave up the day job. I've been writing every day, steadily, some days better than others. I've learned not to judge myself too harshly. As long as I hit a minimum of 1,000 words a day and don't wander off plot, I'm happy. 

As a treat, along with two shortbreads and a cup of tea, I saved up the second series of Mad Men to watch one episode each day. True to form, my greed got the better of me. I watched two or three a day and have now finished Series 2. I found it absolutely mesmerising. It seems to me to be completely confident about what it is. It's slow but it never feels like it's dragging; it's oblique without being confusing and subtle without losing impact. Just when I'm beginning to find a character unsympathetic, the writers show us some vulnerability and it is both poignant and profound.   

If there's a Susie Barrett from Glasgow reading this, then thank you Susie for posting a comment after the review Tell Me No Secrets was given in the Scotsman living section on Saturday. The reviewer did have several positive comments to make but the tone of the critique was ... well - she herself admitted that she was 'carping'. I'm not deluded - of course I expected some less than flattering reviews. As a writer, if you can't take criticism, life will be tough. I don't expect everyone to like my work. Some will; some won't. It's horses for courses and long before I started to write, I often thought that reviewers should declare at the outset their top ten favourite books so that someone reading the review can have an idea of whether or not their likes are similar. I will never win the Booker prize - no false modesty - I simply won't. I don't write the sort of clever books that critics want to dissect and swoon over. I write to entertain. That's all. In my mind this reviewer was missing the point. But then what do I know? - I only wrote it.