Hello everyone. Hope you’re having a good week. Here’s the latest episode of Death Of 1000 Cuts. I’ve got a few more episodes recorded with authors Joe Dunthorne and Ann Morgan which I’ll drip out over the coming weeks while I have gibbering conniptions over deadlines and project crush and other luxury problems.

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Here’s a text version of the extract I discuss this episode, so you can read along if you like. Good luck with your writing.

Love Underground (by Andrew)

It began when I realised writing the song could not fail to make her love me back.

*

A week later, I knelt in wet leaves at the foot of my parents’ garden, soil under my fingernails and a hard plastic treasure clamped between my teeth. Crimson-flushed with embarrassment and October cold, I dug. The earth below the surface was freezing and alive. I rubbed my fingers and shuddered. By the time I had scraped back the leaves and made a hole, I was panting, my lips numb and flecked with spittle where my teeth gritted round the cheap CD-R. I spat it onto the ground and steadied myself; thrust it into the hole and heaped earth back on top. I rocked to my feet, breathing heavily.

I wiped a hand on my jeans and squirmed in the pocket for a Nokia mobile phone. Fifteen minutes until the train back to Edinburgh: to its Old College, and cobbles, and long-dead ghosts. I spat one last time to clear the taste of grey plastic, and hefted my rucksack from the damp grass. I made for the gate, walking fast, gripping the phone one-handed. My fingers were brittle in the cold, but I found the button to compose a new message.

In the garden. You’ll see it. Come tonight.