Finished by the skin of my teeth....

July and August flew by in a haze of hot summer days and long hours chained to the keyboard.  There were A level exams for Younger Son and end of years for Only Daughter.  Eldest Son finished university ridiculously early and joined the previously unknown world of employment serving Toffs (or wannabe Toffs) at Royal Ascot.

The book ticked along with some days of frantic and frenetic writing and other days of endlessly slow   tortuous trickles of words.  I finally finished the book in mid July giving myself only three weeks to edit the first draft.  The editing was done whilst trying hard to ignore the wonderful hot sunshine outside the summerhouse (blinds were drawn tightly) and my shoulders and arms ached from endless backspacing and cut and pasting as I tried to get a draft ready to send off for manuscript review.

The neighbour's noisy gardeners drove me insane (all summer...) with their endless strumming and mowing.  But I would not allow myself to be distracted!  Having the deadline of August 9th was the best thing as I continued to drive myself to at least get a draft finished by then.  It's all too easy to sit around enjoying the sun and not focussing on your work.

So on Friday 9th August, the manuscript made its way into an envelope and off to the Post Office.

108,000 words and six months later.  Hoo-bloody-ray!!