Sometimes I have to print out a book to prove to myself that, at last, it exists.

It does. Another person (her name starts with L) has read it now, and everything. HEE HEE HEE HEE.

Perhaps it happens to every writer – if so, my contemporaries seem to keep it quiet – but I’ve spent most of the last fortnight feeling like this:

This is from one of my very favourite books about writing – The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel by Edward Gorey. I reached the state described above at the same point I seem to reach it in almost all my writing projects – while reading a complete draft for the very first time.

The gulf between what I set out to achieve and what’s there in the book right now is vast and howling. In my previous project I had to conclude that a similar gulf was uncrossable. The possibility, which had to be faced and considered, that I might have to make the same decision again made me feel like howling, myself.

I’m past that now.

The book is looking the worst it’s ever going to look – which means, in theory at least, that from now on everything I do to it will be an improvement. Better yet, now is when I get to make the biggest and most powerful changes. Now, with something to work with, I can make this book work.

A heartfelt, inadequate THANK YOU to the people I love for helping me to get through this again.

This cheered me up too:

It’s My Name is O, just published in Swedish. A hearty Hej! to anyone who reads it.

Sam