I’m not doing a ‘proper’ blog post this week, as I’m frantically busy trying to do a final, final, final proofread of Easy Living ahead of uploading for publication on 29th March.

If you’ve read what I’ve said about it previously, you’ll know I’ve been working on this book for a long time, and it’s very special to me. I’ve made it a lot longer. The first draft was about 80,000 words, and with all the successive drafts and rewrites, that grew to 110,000, even with a lot of waffly, woolly bits being cut out. As I sat down to give the final rewrite before Christmas, the total was up to 113,000. Now, with all my tidying and polishing done, it’s up to 116,000. I can’t help it. I tried to cut it, honest. You know what it’s like. The words keep flowing.

Anyone who’s daft lucky enough to self-publish will know how many little typos seem to sneak through no matter how many times the manuscript has been edited and proofed. I’m still finding a few stray typos, and I’m having a last trawl through for overused words, (my main guilty words are And, So, Well and But. I also have too many gasps of surprise and a lot of anxious biting of lips. This book also features several sexy chuckles!)  and culling some of my exclamation marks. I use far too many of those!!! At least six people have worked on this book, but even so, I’ve still found a couple of things to correct. I think I’ve done enough. I hope I’ve done enough. I’d like to work on it for another year or two, but really, I mustn’t. It’s always hard to let go of a book, but in this case, I feel like it’s almost there. As Nina Simone would say, ‘And I’m feeling good…’

To recover from the trauma of getting my eighth novel out there in the big wide world, Mr Caron Allan Author is whisking me off to Birmingham (UK, not Alabama) for an all-expenses paid weekend in a hotel near the city centre, so we are handy for a concert on Sunday night and breakfast at a Wetherspoons of my choice. There will be a sumptuous dinner the night before. There will be ice cream. There will be book browsing and possibly notebook purchasing. I can’t make any promises about restraint or budget-keeping.

Have a good one!

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