The latest on the book-front is that the second proofs are done and sent back to Salt. It took a while to corner all those devil-may-care commas etc that were lying in wait to shout ‘Can’t find me, I’m your gingerbread comma…’ It was nearly always a case of me saying ‘ok that’s done, but I won’t send it in just yet’ and I’d wait a day or so and then on that day or so I would re-read the whole book again just ‘to be sure, to be sure’ and sure enough, something out of place was always found….I was amazed at the two pages or so of changes I had listed.
I am now at the stage of ‘Lift-up-your-book-,only-it-is-not-your-book-and-you-are-not- you-, you-are-a-casual-reader-with-no-connections-to-the-author’ This is called ‘Fooling Oneself Briefly Into Thinking You Can Be Objective’ – yes, I want to pretend that it’s not me nor my book and try to eek out an objective opinion out of myself about my book – the talking-to-oneself approach goes something like this:
Two characters: Pretending-Not-To-Be-Me (PNTBM) and Me (M)
PNTBM That’s about Flamenco dancing, isn’t it?
M It is and it isn’t.
PNTBM For me it’s about Flamenco dancing, it has to be, can’t see what else it would be about.
M It does have another level too though.
PNTBM Isn’t one level good enough?
M Right-oh! What about that next one?
PNTBM That’s about sunglasses.
M Yes and …
PNTBM Like the inclusion of the song ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme, a home after mid-night’
M Does that fit ok with the idea of sunglasses and the dark and darkly comic stuff like that?
PNTBM Maybe – Madam X and incognito – didn’t you used to play a game of being Madam X when you were a kid and I remember you wore lucky-bag sunglasses and faked accents and tried to make your brothers believe that you were an elusive film star who just happened to be out for a walk in the country and decided to drop in on their sand-box while they were there with buckets and spades and not exactly open to the idea of a Madam X with sunglasses calling on them.
M (stamps foot and says something along the lines of:) Hey, PNTBM, pack it in, remember you know nothing about me, ‘Nothing’- stop slipping back into the M role – you are PNTBM and I am M. Let’s begin again…
(To be continued…)
* Normal, run-of-the-mill, first-book type of talk, isn't it? Do share if you have ever had anything to do with your own PNTBM character... : )