The piece itself had a curious genesis. I originally wrote it for the last round of the poetry section of this year’s Whittaker Prize. Whilst I was writing it, it struck me that there was no obvious need for it to actually be a poem – a comment echoed by the judge, Cathy Edmunds. So I turned it into prose, smoothed down the edges and sent it in with a couple of days to go.

Must say it’s rather cool to be sitting there as one of just four five representatives from the UK in the shortlist of 22 (out of 849 original entrants apparently), alongside the likes of established authors such as Elizabeth Baines. It’s also nice to see Nora Nadjarian, who I know slightly from Twitter, and Claire King, who I met a few weeks back when we were both on the Bristol Short Story Prize shortlist.

I have to admit that I was in two minds whether or not to stay in this contest after it was announced that there weren’t enough entrants to fund the prize money – and in fact my initial reaction was to withdraw. But then I felt bad because both judges agreed to stay on anyway and I was also impressed by the way that the entry fees were refunded immediately so I decided to stay in. And I’m now glad that I did.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should also say that I failed to make the shortlist in the fiction section altogether. But that’s the way it goes with competitions; to paraphrase the excellent words of the judge, Sally Quilford: you win some, you lose some. Huge congrats to everyone who made it, though.

Anyway, in today’s episode, Elizabeth and Wickham make their past hordes of drunken zombies to Darcy’s hotel and we learn a little of his progress towards a cure. There is an enema hose involved.

By the way, plans are afoot to produce a third and probably final YouTuberance. The broad outlines of a script are being prepared even as I write. So to speak.

As I hinted in my last post on the subject, I had a serious feeling of hubris about the whole venture, too. Who was I to be thinking I deserved to have my work broadcast to the nation? Whilst it was on, this manifested itself in me continually wanting to change the piece, wishing I’d done one last edit. Here are a few things that occurred to me:

1. Why Arnolfini, for God’s sake? The story was originally called “The Great Gandolfini and His Wife” and the reason I changed it was because someone pointed out to me that it made them think of overweight American actors rather than tightrope walkers. Fair enough, but Arnolfini was a bit of a lazy choice with too many irrelevant overtones. Or maybe I was being over-sensitive because it wasn’t long since I’d been at the Arnolfini Centre in Bristol?
2. I let an “Eventually” through. Everyone writer has their word-that-always-creeps-in, and mine is “Eventually”. I completely missed it. I was so annoyed about that.
3. There seemed to be far too many words. “The Amazing Arnolfini” is actually quite an early story of mine, dating back to November 2007, and I think I’ve tightened up my style a bit since then. I kept thinking “Oh, stop showing off your bloody research and get on with it!”

Maybe it’s just another demonstration of the fact that a story’s never truly finished. And maybe it doesn’t matter quite so much if a story takes its time to get going when it’s on the radio – it’ll still keep moving forward as long as the actor keeps reading it.

But setting all that aside, it was an extraordinary experience and I felt amazingly privileged to have an actor of Laurel Lefkow’s calibre reading the story – and it was wonderful to see the wave of comments from my friends on Facebook and Twitter when it finished. The only sad thing is that neither of my parents were alive to hear it. My mother died a long time ago, but my father died earlier on this year. He would have been 94 this week in fact and I wish he could have heard the broadcast, if only because it might just have convinced him that I wasn’t completely wasting my time on this writing lark.

So ends a rather momentous week. I suspect that life will be a little anti-climactic for a while, although I did hear something rather interesting on Friday; however, I don’t want to say anything about it yet until the final details have been sorted out. One thing that I can tell you about is that I’m going to be a guest on the lovely Alison Bacon’s blog early in September. I’ll give you a prod about that nearer the time.

In the meantime, if you haven’t heard “The Amazing Arnolfini and His Wife” yet, you’ve got until next Wednesday to hear it via Listen Again. Here’s the link. I was extremely chuffed that Tania Hershman (whose brilliant book “The White Road” recently went into its 15th impression – you have got it already haven’t you?) chose it as one of her stories of the week on Twitter today.

I’ve managed to get myself on the front page of my old school website, and I’ve even got myself on the front page of my old college alumni site – to put this into perspective, the last writer alumnus they had on there was one China Miéville, and the last person from my year on there was Martin Weale, CBE (hi, Martin!). I’m also on the Bristol Short Story Prize site. Closer to home, our lovely ex-neighbour who used to babysit for our kids has apparently got half her church congregation primed and ready to listen in. What are they going to think?

And what do several hundred thousand people saying “meh” together sound like?

So if you want to watch someone slowly being reduced to a gibbering wreck as the hour approaches tomorrow, follow me on Twitter. It could be quite entertaining. But not necessarily in a good way.