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I

The absence of breakfast

'The Well of Lost Plots: To understand the Well you have to have an idea of the layout of the Great Library The library is where all published fiction is stored so it can be read by the readers in the Outland; there are twenty-six floors, one for each letter of the alphabet The library is constructed in the layout of a cross with the four corridors radiating from the centre point On all the walls, end after end, shelf after shelf, are books Hundreds, thousands, millions of books Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound, everything But beneath the Great Library are twenty-six floors of dingy yet industrious sub-basements known as the Well of Lost Plots This is where books are constructed, honed and polished in readiness for a place in the library above But the similarity of all these books to the copies we read back horaph has to its subject; these books are alive'

THURSDAY NEXT – The Jurisfiction Chronicles

Making one's home in an unpublished novel wasn't without its co day-to-day et in the way of narrative flow and are thus generally avoided The car didn't need refuelling, there were never any wrong nuh hot water, and vacuu There were other, more subtle differences, too For instance, no one ever needed to repeat themselves in case you didn't hear, no one shared the saly 'on the tip of their tongue' Best of all, the bad guy was always someone you knew of and – Chaucer aside – there wasn'tBut there were some downsides The relative absence of breakfast was the first and most notable difference to my daily timetable Inside books, dinners are often written about and therefore feature frequently, as do lunches and afternoon tea; probably because they offer more opportunities to further the story Breakfast wasn't all that wasThere was a peculiar lack of cinemas, wallpaper, toilets, colours, books, anih, minor illnesses If someone was ill in a book it was either terminal and dramatically unpleasant or a mild head cold – there wasn't much in between

I was able to take up residence inside fiction by virtue of a sche to a spate of bored and disgruntled bookpeople escaping froeRunners', the authorities set up the schee of scenery In any year there are close to ten thousand exchanges, fehich result in any e at all

Since I was from the real world and not actually a character at all, the Bellreed to letout at Jurisfiction – at least as long as nancy would allow

The choice of book for my self-enforced exile had not been arbitrary; when Miss Havishaht long and hard Robinson Crusoe would have been ideal considering the clie with I could have gone to Pride and Prejudice but I wasn't wild about high collars, bonnets, corsets – and delicate manners No, to avoid any co to move, I had decided to make my home in a book of such dubious and uneven quality that publication and my subsequent enforced ejection were unlikely in the extreme I found just such a book deep within the Well of Lost Plots a failed atte ineptness that they would never see the light of day The book was a dreary crihts I had planned to stay there for only a year but it didn't work out that way Plans with ht, you never know quite how they are going to turn out

I read hts The air felt warm after the wintry conditions back hoe of a lake In front ofboat of the sort that still plied the coastal routes back home I had flown on oneto have found soo, when I ith SpecOps in Swindon, the world I had temporarily left behind

I donned a pair of dark glasses and stared at the ancient flying boat, which rocked gently in the breeze, tautening the ently As I watched the old aircraft, wondering just how long so woh-sided hull She was carrying a suitcase I had read Cavershah she didn't know me

'Hello!' she shouted, trotting up and offering oodness! What's that?'

'A dodo Her name's Pickwick'

Pickwick plocked and stared at Mary suspiciously

'Really?' she replied, looking at the bird curiously 'I'ht dodos were extinct'

'Where I come from they're a bit of a pest'

'Oh?' mused Mary 'I'm not sure I've heard of a book with live dodos in it'

'I'm not a bookperson,' I told her, 'I'm real'

'Oh!' exclai her eyes wide 'An Outlander'