They're on their way...

Just had an e-mail from lulu.com - the books are printed and on their way! This is the scary part: waiting for them to arrive and hoping (praying!) they are fine! The traumas of last week's sending seem a lifetime ago and real 'work' has taken over. The house is still a tip and the cleaning just keeps getting put back and back! It's too hot to do anything -that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Not much on the cake front this week - hoping to make up for it this weekend! Wonder when the parcel will arrive...?

And then it all went pear-shaped for a while...

It was all going so well. Too well. All I had to do was upload the file to the lulu site and then it was done. That was on Friday...

Today - two days AFTER the launch date, SCOTCH PINE finally reached lulu! It's been unbelievably difficult to transfer the text to PDF this time. The recommended route - using Open Office - introduced a number of annoying little glitches and I realised that I'd have to completely re-check the entire text. So instead I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Acrobat - only to discover that my beloved and antiquated lap top didn't have anything like enough memory to run it! Two computers and a different lap-top later I finally managed at 6.45pm tonight to create a lulu acceptable PDF! The cover was a doddle by comparison.

And now, it's there - I keep going to the website and looking at it!!! Can't quite believe it's actually FINISHED! By the way,for the next 30 days you can get a 10% discount on the cover price by quoting JOANNADUNCANXMM3 in the coupon box at the checkout, thanks to lulu. And you can have a look at the free preview as well - just go to http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/scotch-pine/3169764

BEST CAKE? without a doubt, fruit tart in Druckers in the Bullring on Sunday just before I got the train home from a mad ballet weekend. Delicious. The tart was good too...

IT'S DONE!!!!!

For better or for worse, I've put the final touches to SCOTCH PINE and it is all ready to upload to lulu.com...Scary! Equally scary is the vast amount of Malteasers which I seem to have consumed this week! Just hoping my PDF maker works now... See you on LAUNCH DAY!!!!

Dotting the eyes...

I have dots in front of my eyes. I'm in the final stages of the final FINAL edit of Scotch Pine and I'm combing all 390 pages pulling out rogue full stops and renegade question marks which have invaded my prose and have evaded the eagle eyes of me and the Editor! Still keeping to schedule, but terrified I'll leave in some whopping mistake which will effectively ruin the whole thing! I have two days effectively to get things finished... Watch this space for launch on Monday! There'll be serious cake, I promise.

In the wee small hours of the morning...

This is a knitted squirrel from Jane Bolsover's knitted garden project - which inspired one element of the book. Visit www.bhkc.co.uk/data/the_knitted_garden_jbol.htm to see more of it!

Just 16 days to go...I'm not sure this countdown thing was such a good idea now!! It's scary! I was on holiday last week and spent a vast part of it slashing the wordcount of Scotch Pine and trying to make all my subplots join up. I'm now in the middle of the final typo-hunt and still on track to publish on Midsummer's Day. This is the exciting part - this and the moment the first book arrives from lulu.

It's going to be a chunky book (tho' hopefully it is all muscle!) at 390 pages - my longest so far - and I was worried that people might be reluctant to part with their hard-earned cash during these rather trying times just to find out what happens to Grouse, Partridge, Marmalade and the others. But, so far, I've racked up quite a few pre-orders from readers of the last two books - handing out promotional postcards was a good way of alerting people that it was almost ready to read. I'm not very good at the whole self-promotion thing, though: I get very embarrassed!

Best Cake? Although we loved Kings Lynn, it wasn't that hot in the cake-stakes (at least, not in the places we visited!) so my best cake this week is another Durham one: very fresh almond croissant in Cafe Nero - delicious! They were playing Vivaldi as well, so they get extra brownie points!

One Little Month...

(As Hamlet says in the play!) till publication day! The first draft was finally finished last night - or, more accurately, in the early hours of this morning - and I'm now embarking on big revisions to slim it down and sharpen it up. Not sure what to make of it yet... just pleased I found a way to knit all the bits together! This is the bit I really love - it's much more fun editing than writing! The publicity machine kicks in next week and I'm merrily telling everyone there will be a product by June 21st so I'm going to have to get my head down! Another ballet packed weekend, with Birmingham Royal Ballet in Durham for 2 days - off to King's Lynn on Saturday to catch them there too! Stunning performances of two of my favourite ballets and an introduction to one I hadn't seen before. They're magnificient! Frantically reading Donna Leon's Brunetti books at the moment - devouring them on the commute to work! Having only recently come back from Venice I can imagine it all vividly and her 'hero' is a really lovely bloke who (as a refreshing change!) has a reasonably stable home life and a family who aren't entirely disfunctional! Really admire her pared down style! Half term looms on the horizon - thank goodness for holidays! Best cake: going to cheat - it was a pudding - Rhubarb and Gooseberry Fool at Oldfield's restaurant in Durham. Divine...

The Countdown has started!

Yes! I'm about three thousand words from the end and so I've bitten the proverbial bullet! 'SCOTCH PINE' will be available from midnight on June 21st - the 'longest day' of the year in the UK seems to be an appropriate birth date for a book that is the longest in the series and which has been so long in the writing. Having a countdown timer works wonders for focusing the mind: forty days doesn't seem very long at all! There's a lot still to do, but I'm confident we can meet the deadline. Keep checking back for the latest information! Had a brilliant day on Saturday, managing more than 5,000 words and then going out in the evening to see Eddi Reader in concert - she was wonderful, accompanied by the amazing John McCusker and Boo Hewerdine - a real treat. Her Robert Burns CD was partly responsible for my Burns fixation back in 2005 and her music has been playing in the background while I've written all three books. Her new album is lovely. I left feeling uplifted and recharged! Best cake of recent weeks was the cherry and almond scone - still warm - at Milkhope in Northumberland. It pains me to say it, but it would've given Mary Enbryte's offerings a run for their money...gorgeous!