Brick by brick

I did it. I hit my Third Draft deadline a month ahead of schedule.

Is there a chance this early win is due to a somewhat light touch line edit?

Yes, yes there is.

Going over my book in May made me feel very dizzy, and bored. Very bored. It's like I invited a friend over for a few nights, and the nights turned into weeks, and though I love them very much, I was ready for them to go.

By which I mean that I'm ready for my novel to fly the nest. It needs to go out into the world on its own two feet, stand up for itself, and seek independence.

No doubt it will come back to me in a month or so with the shit kicked out of it, a few pages missing, and try and chuck itself head first into the nearest bin.

But this is the process.

Whether I'm happy about it or not, the next stage for this book, is an audience.

And the feedback, good or bad, is essential to this book surviving beyond my circle of friends. This book needs to bulk up.

I've taken it as far as I can - thank God - time to make it somebody else's problem, now it's over to my generous readers.

Firstly, I'm forcing my husband and Mum to have a read, just to check there's nothing horrendously misguided about it before it goes to the printers.

I'll push out a few more blogs about what I've been up to in May, but this one is all about relief. It's about sitting back and enjoying the smug before the fall.

It's also about the twenty other tasks that I'd forced to take a backseat this year, coming to the fore.

I see it as a sign that my favourite writing magazine, Mslexia, has just arrived in the post. Put your feet up. Breathe.

You have to treat every long-term, painstaking commitment the same; brick by brick.