You may not have guessed from the quality of my shed posts but I do normally give them a fair bit of thought. The content, the pictures. Even the titles, if you can believe it. 

And while this one differs because it is rushed out with fewer bad jokes than you are accustomed to (have become inured to, perhaps), it is definitely my most heartfelt. Thanks to all you amazing supporters, I’ve reached my funding target for The Backstreets of Purgatory and so what has at times seemed (even to me, especially to me) like the naive delusion of a misguided fool is about to become a reality. I cannot express how delighted I am. How appreciative I am of the support I’ve had from family, friends, friends of friends and total strangers. How you have all responded so kindly, so generously to my messages that have come out of the blue, to my posts on Facebook which have been pretty much only about a single subject since the crowdfunding started, to my amateurish attempts at marketing on Twitter and elsewhere. And how some of you have metaphorically and literally held my hand through this whole process.

Thank you. 

Each and every one of you. 

I sincerely hope that you love the book and that your generosity and patience is rewarded as you would have wished.

Of course, there is still a bit more patience required. Still work to do at my end. From the reading events I’ve done over these last few months, I know that there are one or two tweaks that I want to make to the manuscript—where the odd sentence clunks against its neighbour, for example, or the minor errors (actually only one, I think) in the analysis of Caravaggio’s painting—but all are easily fixed. As soon as I can, I’ll send the revised manuscript to Unbound and the editing process begins.

There will be a bit of hiatus for me while the manuscript is edited, I guess, but I’ll keep posting in the shed to keep you entertained (!!) and up to date with progress. 

Right now, I’m off to stock up on supermarket Champagne. Not sure what has happened but somehow my supplies have dwindled since I found out Backstreets’ news on Tuesday night.

Cheers (hic) and thank you again.