Yay. Those two chunks I was putting off and sort of doing and sort of stalling … I finally did them. And then, as with all good log-jam removals, the rest came nice and fast. Those chunks were really very (searches for a word that is all of : gritty, graunchy, messy, meddling, muddling – maybe there isn’t one) anyway, those things. It was all taking out this bit and entirely re-writing that piece and cutting that half chapter and replacing it with a whole new idea and changing some of the time scale and that’s quite scary when actually you’re fairly happy with it (as Agent and Editor and I all are). You might just make a mess of the whole thing. I might. (I don’t think I did.)
Now this draft is printing* up, ready for me to read it and make sure I haven’t ruined it all!

And that’s rather fine timing, especially as I have a full weekend Buddhist course ahead, am traveling to Halifax (trains and snow allowing) for an event on Monday, back Tuesday, radio (London Live, Robert Elms show, big yay) on Wednesday followed by event at Wimbledon Library, followed by launch back in town of In Bed With, then an event at Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge on Thursday with the splendid Manda Scott. So lots of train-reading time for me!

For those of you who care about stats type things, here’s a few :
1st draft of this book finished 29th Aug ’08, 115,806 words
2nd draft finished 14th Dec, 101,255 words
3rd draft 6th Feb, 99,416 words
(it’s lovely the things Word can tell you)

right then, Caryl Churchill’s ten mins Gaza piece at the Royal Court tonight. (Ten mins for a play! how great is that! I wonder if when I’m 70 I’ll just be able to say “I want to do this” and they’ll let me? maybe not, might have had to be way more successful by now if that was going to happen … )

Hey, check out Chichi Parish’s link on the right. The esteemed Julian Crouch pointed out her stuff to me. Lovely work!

*(The first time I printed my first book, Calendar Girl, was back in our particularly small one bedroom flat in Camberwell in 1993. Or maybe ’92.) Anyway, it was all of about 200 pages and took SEVEN HOURS on our old Amstrad with that perforated paper you had to tear apart, sheet by sheet! I still have that ms in a box somewhere. This one is taking about 20 mins and it’s almost 400 pages. Ah technology.)