Belthar's Garden

So I finished revision number 6 and sent the manuscript off to the publishers on Boxing Day. Quite an appropriate present for them, don't you think? Or is that arrogant?

I realised on that day that this book has so far been five years in the making - it began in 2003 - an unusual day because that was when I saw the whole theme of the book in a flash (and I remember where I was when it happened). Usually, I have to drag my stories out of their closets, screaming and kicking. Unkulunkulu's Music cost me almost an entire kitchen (smash a glass? Not me. I can smash a wooden table AND break its legs and - pah! - a solid cupboard door is NOTHING).

I was walking the dogs (all theree of them were still alive then - now it's only Veisha) past the old steel barrel at the end of my driveway when it happened and I came inside and smacked out the first few pages in an hour. Then it lazed around a while, and then got going in fits and starts, until it got itself done about a year later. Now 5 re-writes down the line, and I think it's looking good.

Well, let's see what the publishers say. And please - hold thumbs for me.