This summer has been devoted to editing The Cartography of Others. If I have been quiet since crowdfunding was completed in June, I am sorry! In the meantime I have been working with Unbound’s efficient editing team, rearranging the stories, streamlining the texts, teasing out contrasts in voice and location, and killing off unruly adverbs and adjectives. 

I’d like to say it’s over – mainly because I think I’ve mistreated my eyes – but it is not. After the recent completion of structural edits, we will soon move onto copy edits, and then line edits after that. So I am currently in a peculiar limbo between one level of excruciation and another, attempting to fool myself into producing some new material.

(I’m also terrified there are mistakes still hiding in there!)

In southern Europe the summer is long and very hot. My edits – both printout and laptop – have come with me on planes, buses, more buses, on boats in rough seas, ferries, onto an island, to various bars including my absolutely favourite bar in the world. They were pored over after hikes and hangovers, after swims and naps and, at the end of it all, were dragged back up to the attic at my place where my household rarely remember to look for me.

So The Cartography of Others is coming together. Endless thanks to all of you for your support and patience.

Xcat