Kevin Power: My first novel was a hit. I could write full-time. And that made me … angry

A month after the book was published in Ireland, my agent sold the reprint rights in a two-book deal to a UK publisher for more money than I had ever made in my life. (Given that I had never earned more that €16,000 a year, this should not be taken for a particularly startling metric.) Then she sold the film rights. Then she sold foreign rights, to Spain, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Brazil.

The success of Bad Day in Blackrock allowed me to become that superficially glamorous thing, a full-time professional writer. I moved into an apartment in the centre of Dublin with bookshelves lining the hallway. The apartment overlooked the courtyard of a busy hotel, which meant that every morning at 6am, I was awoken by the sound of glass bottles crashing into the recycling bin directly below my window.