So, earlier today I met up with the lovely Caroline Smailes to run through the first lot of edits for Freaks!. Thankfully, there wasn’t all that much to do, but what we needed to do, we did. We changed some words, we re-jigged the story order slightly – that kind of thing. And I’ve just, this minute, emailed the whole thing to our splendid publisher (I am hoping, very much, that he likes what we’ve done). That makes me happy. I was happy the other day too, because, as well as including the suggested changes to the manuscript, the feedback was great. It was, as it always is, a relief (I’ve learned that me thinking something’s good, doesn’t mean anyone else will!). So, yes, happy.
But a little sad as well. It kind of marks the end of an era in that, I think, this’ll probably be the last time I’ll need to meet up with Caroline to discuss all things Freaks!. (It also makes me wonder how on earth we wrote the whole bloody thing without meeting once, but that’s another story!)
Tonight, I think I’ll celebrate. It’s been a big job, we started it almost a year ago and, although there’ll be more work we’ll have to do on it before publication (next April, folks), we’ve done it. We’ve made something we’re both hugely proud of and excited by – and all this is without mentioning the illustrations Darren Craske has done for it! I don’t know where I’ll go later, or what I’ll do (it’s at times like this I kind of wish more of my friends lived closer) but I’ll do something to mark the day. It’s only right.
For now, I’ll simply allow myself a very little, but very satisfied, yay!
***
And a photo – mid-edit…