A Thorny day and getting reacquainted with Paul

Up early this morning, dammit, as I had a doctor's appointment at 8.40am. 8.40am!! Why do I do this to myself? Am I insane?? No, don't answer that. It might incriminate me ... Anyway, I picked another doctor this time rather than the souped-up bitch queen I saw before, as I vaguely remembered he might have been nice from when I saw him a couple of years ago. He was too. In spite of being only 9 years old, he actually listened, agreed to write out a prescription for my oh-God-make-me-normal oestrogen dose, and told me that my blood pressure was fine. He also thought that the HRT might not be affecting my teeth after all, but I should ask the specialist when I see her next week. So, thank you, Dr B! I have now marked him down as one of the nice ones at the surgery and I will make sure to ask for him next time I have to go.

Back home, I have been tackling the edits for Maloney's Law and reacquainting myself with Paul. Bloody hell though, I'm really enjoying it. I've forgotten how nice he is. If screwed-up. My gay male MCs are always screwed up. But he's possibly the most accessible male character I have, at least in a lead role. I must have been feeling astonishingly normal when I wrote him. And, God, but I've made some of the sections terribly sad. Honestly, but I was crying myself and I wrote the bloody stuff. Hugely embarrassing for a writer to have to admit! And not exactly professional either - if I ever knew the meaning of that word of course.

Talking of my lack of professionalism, I have had deep and terrible traumas with Thorn in the Flesh today. Antony Rowe are as usual doing the printing for us and the proof copy was due shortly after Christmas. Well, here we are on the 10 January and no sign of it. As you can imagine, I'm beginning to get twitchy, particularly with the launch coming up in February. Jackie has already chased on my behalf with no success, so I rang the company today to see what was going on. I spoke to two different people at some length, neither of whom could find any record of my book, or of having anything outstanding for either me or Goldenford. Oh God, horrors! After finishing the calls, I lay down on the carpet, weeping and gnashing my teeth, whilst screaming. Well, I'm a woman with extra oestrogen now, so I can multi-task. Indeed I always like to keep a professional veneer in the face of appalling disasters. As you can tell. And God alone knows what the neighbour thought ... Anyway, before I could jump out of a window and end it all, our contact at Rowe rang back to tell me that the proof copy of Thorn will be posted tomorrow and should be with us by Monday. Oh Lord, the relief! My dears, you can't imagine!

It had better arrive on Monday though - or I may not be responsible for my actions ... Watch this space, eh.

I have also rung the completely lovely and very sweet people at Glyndebourne as Lord H and I are keen to book an open day event in March. Such lovely people to deal with - it made a pleasant change from the slings and arrows of other phone calls today for sure!

Tonight, I'm doing more edits - on Chapter Fourteen now so I feel as if I've worked like a dog today. A happy dog though and one who's looking forward to doing more chewing. Oh Lordy, I think I may have lost control over this analogy, so I'd better stop before my teeth fall out. After all, what would the doctor say then?

Today's nice things:

1. Editing Maloney's Law
2. Rediscovering Thorn
3. Ringing Glyndebourne.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers