Since I last logged in, I've been ILL! Very nasty chest infection picked up, I suspect, before I went away and which has lasted two weeks. I am getting better but I found myself totally incapacitated from last weekend, getting breathless from just putting on my shoes - and this from the woman who walked round Venice for eleven hours for four consecutive days!
I've been off work - I can't remember the last time I was away this long- and only ventured back today. HOWEVER: there has been a pay off. After the reasonable success of the Easter holiday writing and the work I've put in from my sick bed this week (literally!) I am pleased to report that I am one chapter away from finishing the first draft of SCOTCH PINE! Given that this weekend is a bank holiday in the UK, I'm pretty confident that - by this time next week - there'll be an ending!
And it's stopped feeling like toothpaste squeezing. In fact I've enjoyed the last three or four chapters as much as anything I've ever written, maybe because it's taken my mind off my aches, pains and wheezing chest! (Or perhaps the cough medicine has had something to do with it! ) There's still lots of work to do with cutting down the word-count and tightening up the plot - I like to think of it as the book going into traction - but with my 'editor' able to read again, all systems are go! Best cake? Sorry - I've been off food as well! But you can't have everything...