Book Three is due to be with the editors in exactly two weeks’ time. I’m writing this while leaving the manuscript to stew for a day or two before another read-through. I’m not sure whether this indicates laziness, desperation or just a blind faith that the subconscious will work out what needs revising while the rest of me goes shopping.
In the meantime I’ve wiped clean all the scrawly writing on the whiteboards. The plot points and dates and multicoloured arrows and question marks have all gone. If it isn’t in the book now, it’s too late. The only thing that can be done at this stage is to work with the words that are there – until the editors’ comments come back and we start Round Two.
As a little light relief, here’s part of a photo taken in the museum at Nimes. The thing held in the girl’s right hand is a mirror. Goodness knows what the official title is, but it ought to be something like, ‘Bad Hair Day in Ancient Gaul’. *
*Turns out the original picture is from the Villa Arianna at Stabiae (near Pompeii). ‘Bad Hair Day in Ancient Italy’, then.
