But it is an odd feeling to have this book in print. I think about how I wrote it - up at dawn or before, a hot teacup to wrap my fingers around when they got too stiff with cold to write, the rest of the world still asleep. I mean, I wrote this stuff in my nightie, in a very private and quiet place. And now it's going spectacularly public. It seems strangely immodest, somehow, like how you feel when somebody turns up at your house unexpectedly, when you're wandering around in your underwear.

All that aside, it is still very very cool. Sometimes I look at the book and see my name on the front and go "Wow - that's me. How did this happen?" I think I'm so lucky - I have a great lifestyle, a great partner, wonderful friends, the promise of a publishing career, flexible hours, complete immersion in the things I love - if this were a b-grade American movie, I would be soooo marked for death. A tragic error would bring the mafia crashing right through that window to assassinate me, mistaking me for an international criminal mastermind. Then one of you would have to avenge my death, I guess.

Anyway, having decided that I won't apologise or try to pass off typographical errors in the book as deliberate instances of irony, I thought that I'd use my fifteen minutes of fame to do an FAQ session. For the luddites, FAQ is internet speak for "Frequently Asked Question". I've got together a handful of questions that people have asked me a lot in the year since I signed my contract, and to preclude you all having to ask them, I've got the definitive answer on each.

Question number one. Why do you want to write horror? This is one of those questions that can be said in a very genuine way, or with a tone of barely concealed disgust. Well I don't know, because it was never a conscious choice. I guess I've always been attracted to the darker side of life - could be the product of an aetheist upbringing. My father was fond of telling me that there was no afterlife, that when I died I would be "worm tucker". I guess that's a pretty fertile breeding ground for sick thoughts. I write horror because I love the suspense, the flirting dangerously close to something terrible. While doing some research for the novel I'm currently working on, I found out conclusively that you can't summon a demon by accident - it usually requires many years of training. And while I was strangely relieved by this, I was also strangely disappointed. Some of the best moments of my life were spent at pre-pubescent slumber parties, staying up way too late, getting that almost hysterical thrill out of telling spooky stories - you know the type: "And the Satanic psycho was banging on the roof of the car with her boyfriend's head!!!" I have always loved that awful, irresistible, warm tingle of anticipation, when for a few moments, you wondered whether the Satanic psycho was just outside the bedroom window in his Yogi-bear suit, waiting to split half a dozen twelve-year old girls in half with his axe. I'm just trying to recapture that feeling, that's all. Mind you, that's the only thing about puberty I want to recapture.

Question number two. Where do you get your ideas from? The flippant answer is that you send away to a little place in the Virgin Islands, and they post you back a list. Of course the truth is far more complex than that. Ideas come from everywhere. Sometimes it's just from curiosity - you wonder what would happen to a person if you put them in this situation, or that situation. Sometimes you can get a wonderful idea from a dream or a fantasy. Sometimes they come from reading other books. Sometimes it's just plain old logic - for A and B to wind up being pursued by a monster in chapter 24, something has to happen in chapter 12 to lay the groundwork for it. Sometimes they seem to pop, wholly formed, on your fingertips while you're writing. But rarely. Sometimes you watch your friends closely and write about them. Am I kidding?

Question number three. Is that you on the front cover of your book? No.

Question number four. Is the book about you? No.

Question number five. Can you help me get published? Probably not. But for a fee I'll gladly pretend that I can.

Question number six. When do you think you'll write something more worthwhile? Okay, this has only been asked of me once, but it's still a good one. I think I responded at the time that I would start writing something more "worthwhile" when Coles started letting me pay for my groceries with artistic integrity. But it's not that at all. I really love what I'm doing. My interest in Literature with a capital L peters out at about the same time the last Bronte sister died. As for twentieth century fiction? I'm sorry, but while the last Miles Franklin winner gathers dust on my bookcase, I'm sucking down Satanic romances like there's no tomorrow. As my friend Drew is so fond of reminding me: "No profit grows where is no pleasure taken / In brief, sir, study what you most affect". I'm not going to sell out and write Literature to gain the approval of 5% of the population. I've got me about a dozen ideas for novels, and the topics covered include grave robbing, demon worship, ghostly romances, possession, live burial, alien abductions, and all forms of sorcery. About the only thing I won't touch is vampires, because I don't believe in them.

Question number seven. Are you writing another book? Well, of course I am. I go all strange when I'm not writing one. I've done about 40000 words, and it should be finished in February next year, just in time for me to take a year off writing and concentrate on my honours year. It's about ghosts, undying love, and Satanic ambitions. And that's just my honours dissertation. Wait until you read the book!

Question number eight. How do you manage to write and study at the same time? I don't know, and I don't like to think about it in case I realise it's impossible.

Question number nine. I'm a bit squeamish about horror novels - do you mind if I read the last page first? Yes, I mind very bloody much. I want to lobby for last chapters of books to be sent out separately, only after the reader has filled out a questionnaire demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of the rest of it. If you read the last page first, you'd better be damn sure I never find out. Dismemberment is my speciality, don't forget.

Question number ten. How does it feel to have your book published? Really fucking good. As you'd expect.

(© Kim Wilkins 1997)