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So, here it is,the blog

So, here it is, nearly four months late. The blog.

The delay's not through any lack of enthusiasm on my part - I'm delighted to know that setting-up this website (four, five years too late?) hasn't been a waste of time, and I will be more attentive to it in the future. But the last four months have been entirely dominated by writing the script for the movie of One Day which I'm delighted to say we start filming in mid-July. Nina Jacobson is producing, and Lone Scherfig directing, and despite the fact that we've been separated by several thousand miles during most of the process, they've been a delight to work with. Lone, I'm sure, is used to having her name followed by the words ('An Education') but I've long been a fan of her other movies, particularly Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself and Italian For Beginners. And Nina has been a great champion of the project - it's almost unheard of to go from publication of the novel to production of the film so quickly. Nina is a force of nature.

At time of writing, the official cast includes Anne Hathaway playing Emma and Jim Sturgess as Dexter, with Romola Garai as Sylvie, Dexter's wife, and Rafe Spall as the unfortunate would-be stand-up Ian. The few times I've worked on a film, I always hope that I'll spend a great deal of time with the actors, hang out and have dinner together etc etc but the fact is that the screenwriter tends to keep their distance from the production process. Unless it's just me.  Either way, I've not had a great deal of conversation with the cast as yet, but they're all fine, fine actors. The read-through is this Friday. Terrifying and exciting at the same time

What else? I'm looking forward to reading at various festivals later this year - Edinburgh in August, Cheltenham in October.The BBC serial that I've been writing continues to be 'in development', thought the script of Great Expectations that I've written seems to be moving forward. Once again, we'll see.

The other distraction has come from the publication of One Day in a number of other countries. The success of the book in Germany and Switzerland has been a great pleasure and delight, and as I write this I'm off to Barcelona for the Spanish/Catalan publication. Many thanks to all the readers who've sent kind, generous messages to the website, and apologies for any delay on my part in replying

Will keep you posted, and write again in either two weeks or nine months.