Well, I’m at the tweaking, polishing and perfecting stage of my thesis. It’s pleasure and pain in equal doses, having to go back over it again and again and again and again. Then I hit on a minor adjustment and bingo, I’ve got it!

As Mark says about his wood carving, it’s 60% carving, 40% sanding and polishing. I think writing is the same!

I was horrified to see how many times I use the word ‘but,’ so I’ve been trawling through my novel interspersing howevers and althoughs, shooting adverbs and trying to stop my characters from grinning all the time. They grin so much!! Ah, the pleasure and the pain.  Soon I will be off on my summer holidays (yippee) and I hope I will have little to do to finalise when I get home except for getting my thesis bound and then begin the terrifying job of contacting potential publishers.

Eeeeeeee . . . . .