I'm really chuffed to tell you that Celine Kelly is going to be editing my book.
Celine has worked at Penguin and Headline and has edited novels by Marian Keyes, Jane Green and Jane Fallon, who have between them sold more than 35 million books.
As you can imagine, I'm a bit star struck!
The novel has been read again, several times - I realised only last week that I had somehow called one character after an old friend entirely by accident so that had to change. It's surprisingly difficult to give everyone names which look different on the page (so the eye can recognise the shape of who they are), start with different letters (because we use hooks like this to remember things), and which vary between being long and short. All these factors make it easier for a reader to know exactly who is being talked about without needing to flip backwards and forwards to work it out. As well as all that they need to be correct for the time period. No Kayleigh-Annes in 1897, for example.
Eventually - because there is always, ALWAYS, something which can be tweaked, I made myself stop fussing with it and pulled everything together in one massive document of 82,239 words. And then I took a deep breath, and sent it off to Unbound. The word count will change because I'm sure there will be things to be cut and explanations to be added; people will need to have different clothes or eat fewer cheese sandwiches or go on holiday to Mull.
And now I wait for Celine to give me her opinion, and I'm going on holiday myself to take my mind off it all.
I'd like to say a big thank you to my recent pledgers who have pushed the funding pot up to 107%.
Margaret Walker, Andrea Topping, Jackie Donovan, Rupert Bumfrey, Clare Stevens, Rebecca Wright, Richard Williams, Sarah Inman, Helen Yewdall and an anonymous donor as well.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!
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