Fanmail. It’s an odd idea, when you start writing books, that someone might bother to write and thank you. But they do. And it is a delight, after a long day fiddling with edits or fettling plots, to find a little email in the inbox which just says ’thanks, I enjoyed your book’.

The creativity of writing is its own reward, of course it is. It is a privilege to have the time and the opportunity to make up stories. If people actually pay their hard-earned money to read them, I already feel hugely lucky.

If they subsequently take the trouble to write a thank you message, that’s hitting the jackpot. So I feel like a lottery winner this week with three thank yous – one from Norway (written, of course, in impeccable English).

They liked the books. They urged me to write more as soon as possible. They promised to buy them when I did.

It made my week!

It also reminded me that I should do the same – write to authors whose books I really enjoyed. Take the trouble. Leave a review. I don’t do it often enough myself.

At the local supermarket the checkout staff sometimes hand out little cards asking for feedback. I confess to having stuck them in my bag and forgotten them in the past. I shall make a point of going online and recommending Traci on checkout 9’s work this week. I hope it makes her as cheerful as my feedback has made me.