I've just come back home from Cheltenham. It was great fun, and I'll have a quick run down of some of the best points.

• The hotel I was put up in was so posh a tiny bag of KP nuts cost £1.75. This is not a complaint.
• I can find a Wetherspoons pub anywhere. It's a skill.
• One of the staff in the 'Writer's room' wrote her dissertation on my publisher The Friday Project, including my book in it.
• Another volunteer who looked after the panel did some work experience for The Friday Project.
• Both of the above are obviously intelligence people of taste and distinction. Also pretty.
• All the guests on the panel were lovely, as was the host.
• Jed Mercurio, as well as being lovely, has given me a lot to think about.
• Feedback from the audience was apparently good - I'm glad that they enjoyed it.
• I did my first ever signing - it was *superb*.
• I still feel like some sort of a fraud. I think that I need to get over myself.
• I managed to get my favourite book of all time signed by the author ('Microserfs' by Douglas Coupland) and I managed to blabber like a fame struck idiot at the same time.

This is the first time that I've done anything public around 'literature' as opposed to internet/blogging. If they are all as interesting, well thought out, and perfectly organised as this one I'd like to do some more.

I'd also like to thank all the people involved for inviting me - it was great.

Now - back to work at 6:30am tomorrow, and back to writing about ambulance things.

I am still alive, although I've been very busy for these past two days.

Mostly sleeping.

I just thought that I'd mention that this coming Saturday and Sunday I'll be in Cheltenham for the Times Literature Festival.

Saturday will be spent mainly wandering around checking out some of the talks.

Then on Sunday I become one of the guests. For an hour I'll be on a panel with Jed Mercurio (who is a writer I greatly admire) and Dr. Thomas Stuttaford (who writes for The Times).

There are details online.

I'm listed as a 'performance'. This amuses me. It also amuses me that I'm considered Literature.

If you want to see me there is a payment involved and I'm getting paid for my appearance.

This amuses me no end.

I'll also be around for book signings and 'photocalls', it's part of the work contract I signed.

I doubt I'll be much bothered by constant calls for my picture to be taken.

...Actually it was one day's drinking and three days of catching up on the telly that I'd recorded, but the "three days" thing is a line from one of my favourite songs.

So three days of rest and recovery from the holiday, and as I sit and type this I'm three short hours from heading back to work. Then I have some writing to do for a few people and then I suspect I'll have to start work on the sequel to 'Blood, Sweat and Tea'.

I was giving some thought about the sequel, about making at least a third of it original content by looking back at my time as an A&E nurse. Then I got an email from an A&E doctor who has written a book about working in an A&E department. This meant I was going to have to trawl through this obviously inferior manuscript so that I wouldn't be accused of pinching his ideas.

Except that the swine has written a really good book.

I would say that if you like my writing, you'll like this - 'Dr Nick' explains what happens after I wave goodbye to my patients at the hospital, he also writes well on the politics that are screwing up the NHS. Funny and touching, while cynical he does also have a soft spot for the same sorts of patients that I like.

I can highly recommend this book - I enjoyed it, even though for me it's a busman's holiday.

It's also cheap.

I'm tired, my feet are sore and I have a lot to do before some friends come over to visit later this evening. However, because of some annual leave that I took I have a full 13 days off.

This makes me happy.

I shall be trying to get some relaxation on, do some writing, start prepping the sequel to 'Blood, Sweat and Tea', maybe attack my garden with napalm, tidy my house and catch up on some books that I need to read.

So really I'll be busier than I am when I'm at work...

Thankfully I have a few blogpost ideas jotted down, so there will still be regular updates here and, because I will have time to actually compose them rather than scribbling* them down, they may even be more readable than normal.

There are also a few event type things I'm going to be going to - including getting paid to talk about blogging. How easy money is that?

The only sad thing is that my travel mug at work (used for that essential 6:30am cup of tea) has disappeared - I don't know who'd want it as it is kept in a manky state for exactly this reason. Now the action figure version of myself will have to come with a different accessory. Something like a 'realistic pool of vomit' or a 'Life size "Vehicle incident" form - yes, he's reversed the ambulance into something again!'.

I have a Team Leader looking for it, such is my celebrity pull.

*Ahem*.

*What is the typing equivalent of 'scribbling?

I’m feeling really disconnected – I shouldn’t do, I have a metric ton of computers in my flat, even a few old laptops…

But without my Macbook which I’d set up ‘just right’, along with all my emaail settings and the like I feel like I’m missing an arm.  I think that it’s because my desktop needs me to sacrifice a small animal before it’ll start up…

What I would like to know though is why it takes ‘7–10 days’ to fix a problem which I could fix in forty minutes if I had the parts.

This is why blogging has been slight of late, and why I’ve been pretty much unable to answer any emails.

But…

There is superb news, both from my publisher.  Firstly my publisher Clare Christian won ‘Best Young Publisher’ and secondly I’ve sold the rights to my book to various people – which is fun.

Clare writes about the award here (where you can see my gap-toothed smile); and about the rights stuff here.

So it's not just St Georges day today - it is also International Pixel-Stained Technopeasants Day, go and have a look for lots of crunchy free stuff. I've included my own stuff. By coincidence I only signed up to Livejournal today.

Tip of the hat to Warren Ellis.

Apparently I'm a Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch. And a 'scab' (Although he doesn't seem to really understand what a scab is...)

There is a reasoned argument against his rant.

And yes, 'Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch' would make a lovely T-Shirt.