Beelzebub's Birthday

Twenty years ago today, after the opening paragraph dictated itself to me out of nowhere in particular, I started writing Beelzebub. It wasn't my first attempt at a novel, or even the first completed attempt having been preceded by several miscarriages and at least two stillbirths; but for all its borrowings from William Hope Hodgson, James Blish and others, it was the first that didn't feel like a laboured imitation of one or more better writers. Being a genius at the time, I naturally jumped in with only the sketchiest excuse for a story; hence the birth-pangs of the first draft, which lasted until the end of August and which, when I had to stop inventing delightful details and start trying to pull everything into some sort of shape, very nearly killed me. Beelzebub remains the longest work I've ever written; longer even than my latest, which has two more point-of-view characters and a somewhat wider geographical scope. Anyway, if you need a better reason than VE Day to raise a glass or a devil, please feel free.