Jon Courtenay Grimwood

3. To whom are you writing? No, really. Who do you consider to be your audience when writing? Your cat? Your friends? Anyone who feels like it?

My cat is not my audience! Unless his passion for walking across the keyboard when I’m trying to write or treating any pile of paper to be edited as a bed is a subtle form of criticism. (Maybe not so subtle.) I write for myself and hope that others will like what I do. Friends of mine send their first drafts to their agent, editor or other friends; or put early versions up on the web and invite comment. The idea of doing that sends shivers down my spine. No one gets to see of my books until it is finished and then I, very reluctantly, let my wife Sam Baker read it! Over the years she’s got tougher in her criticism. Largely, I think, because I’m quite tough when I do the first reading of her own novels.

There is a huge arrogance in being a writer and expecting hundred or thousands or tens of thousand of readers in lots of different countries to give you hours of their life. So I write for myself, to stay sane, and hope that people out there go, Yes, that makes sense, Maybe this man’s not an idiot, or, I feel like that…