I have finished chapters 17-20 of By The Sea, and am just about ready to deliver them to LabLit. The serialized version there will take a two-week break which will give me a little space to get the final four chapters right.

When I studied English Literature A-level (I did this at night school, in my thirties, long story) my tutor told me that Virginia Woolf had been a manic depressive: full of joy when she started a novel, but increasingly depressed as she drew it to a close. I’d written a couple of books by then, and reflected that this was normal – you don’t have to have bipolar disorder to have had that particular experience.

By The Sea has been something of a contrast, though. I was somewhat uncertain about it to begin with, and got rather depressed as I went on. I couldn’t engage with the characters as much as I’d have liked to. But now it’s getting to the climax, events are moving thick and fast and the characters are coming to life. I like them all, heroes and villains.

Now I am refining the plot of the final four chapters. Not because I don’t know what happens (because I do), but mainly to work on the ‘reveal’ – in which we learn what’s really been going on – deciding how best to deliver it, in which voice, and when. This is working out well, too, and I expect to have the whole thing finished in a few weeks.

In the meantime, I read this article in BBC Focus about a Web 2.0 application called Galaxiki. It’s an entire fictional galaxy with zillions of stars, planets and moons, which you can dive into and edit, either in a communal way – and/or you can buy star systems for yourself, so that you can develop them in private, ‘freeing’ them to the community when you’ve finished, if you wish.

Like many children (and adults, too), my daughter Phoebe (aged 9) has created an imaginary world in which she likes to tell stories. She’s been refining it for years. For some reason I cannot fathom it’s called Bombamania (I do wonder whether the inhabitants have an unhealthy passion for explosives).

So, having discovered Galaxiki, we spent a great time this weekend searching for a suitable virtual planet in Galaxiki where Bombamania might be situated. We found one that nobody had yet visited. Phoebe got in there and started writing the history of Bombamania. You can read all about it here.

Now, some fathers buy ponies for their daughters. Others buy them convertibles. But I outdid them all – I bought her the entire Bombamanian solar system, with its desirably yellow dwarf sun, loads of planets and a vast number of exciting moons.

Best of all, it only cost six quid. So I bought another star system for myself. On the quiet.