assembly required

all done. now i am the proud owner of a novel kit, complete with swanky cover art, back cover blurb, acknowledgements, dedications and tongue-in-cheek author profile. it will come in somewhere round 300 pages lengthwise and, if used in self defence, should make a nice thunking noise on contact. once all the pages have been delivered back to the publisher, they will come back as 2nd proofs and i'll probably read it again - however this time i will most probably have to make sure there are no writing implements within reach while i am reading. i am afraid i will never be able to stop tinkering with it... i think there is a final set after that, then it's off to be made into a real book. that should put a copy in my hand late june, and copies on shelves from august the first. woohoo!

a proofreader is also reading my pages at this very moment (figuratively speaking, of course). i am quite excited as she is the first to read it in its current form, and this is the first time she's seeing it. it'll be really interesting to find out what she thinks of it. it'll be like my first review in a way, apart from the fact that if there are any major problems i'll get a chance to fix them. i don't think there should be anything major at this stage, but when you're this close to something it's sometimes hard to see it objectively, so there's a chance there could be some continuity stuff or the like. time will tell... also, countdown is on for my editor's baby, due any day now!