Hello friends,

I hope you are well, and that you are having a nice May. It's been over a month since I popped by here, so I thought it is high time I swing by and tell you how the book is going.

When I launched Stim, I was determined that no one would work until I could guarantee we could pay them -- essentially until we hit 100%. This is because I believe no one should do any work without being paid for their time. We hit 100% a full month before I was expecting we would, but luckily I was already talking to some of the contributors about deadlines and their pieces.

Some of the pieces were pitched in full, and only needed a line-edit or just a tidy up. The others were pitches, an outline of an idea that needed to be filled out and turned into it's full self. That takes time. A first draft comes to me, I make comments, the author keeps working on it, drafts and emails go back and forth between us until we are both satisfied. You can imagine that with 20 contributors this takes a lot of time. 

I am also working on the other bits of the book; the introduction, an extensive resources list, collating bios for all our contributors. 

I'm pleased to tell you that we've got 50% of the pieces done, and a lot of them are nearly there. Currently we are hoping to turn the manuscript into Unbound in mid-June, where they will proof it and make everything tidy.

There have been some delays, which are almost entirely due to a period of bad health I've been going through, and I'm currently getting to see the insides of a variety of Croydon hospital departments. (Those of you who are on Twitter, I'm sorry for keeping you a little *too* informed) I know you are all eager for the book, but these things take time, especially when the people working on it are neurodiverse, disabled, and even unwell. 

As it stands, we're hoping that you will all have your copies in early 2020. I won't be able to give you a firmer timeline than that until the full manuscript is in Unbound's hands, where they will plot all the important bits that come with a book -- design, marketing, sales, distribution etc. You guys will get the book before it goes on general sale. I will update you all as soon as we have everything laid out with the team. 

In the mean time, I will try and keep you updated. At the moment there's not much to show you except piles upon piles of print outs of each piece, marked with pen and things like "gemma ehj edit final final final", which is not very exciting. I have put the words FINAL on quite a few digital files this week, which is exciting, and I'm really pleased to tell you it's shaping up to be a brilliant, beautiful little book. 

To tide you over, here is my little dog Nerys looking happy, having been featured in this article about dogs that support their owners.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply here or drop me a line at lizzie.stim@gmail.com.

All the best,

Lizzie