Like busses, the initial reports on the unnamed monster (no, not that one) that is Book 2 are back, both arriving within a couple of hours of each other. Which means I can stop e-nagging Phil, poor sod that he is ;}# Both he and JamesO seem relatively sure it don’t munch jobbies, which is a great weight off my tiny mind. I’m going to split the weekend between writing copy for the new website (now that it’s pretty much all style-sheeted up) and implementing a couple of the suggested tweaks – have to be careful not to change too much at this point though, as one never knows what some people are going to like and others are going to hate – before firing it off to Jane and Sarah at HarperCollins for Monday. Which will be when the real acid test occurs.
Mind you, I suppose most of this tweaking will have to take place on the Saturday, as Sunday is likely to be ‘family day’. My brother Scott (no, not the ego-searchy one) and his family (lovely wife Catherine and three-year-old son Logan**) arrived unexpectedly from Ireland on Thursday, so they could attend Kim’s father’s funeral. Scott can be oddly thoughtful like that.
As they live in Dublin (where he is the head chef at the American Embassy no less) they don’t get over all that often, so there’ll probably be an elongated Sunday meal arranged, involving much sitting about and eating of things. And then some railway construction with Logan, who has a great wooden rail-and-road set.
Last time I managed to extend his education: “Look Logan,” says Uncle Stuart, pointing beneath the lovely suspension bridge they’ve just built, “Do you know who lives under there?” Logan furrows his little brow and admits that no, he doesn’t know who lives beneath the bridge. “Ah,” says Uncle Stuart, with an avuncular wink***, “That’s where the wino’s live.” He, of course, proceeds to tell his mummy that winos live under the railway bridges, while Uncle Stuart runs for cover, giggling maniacally.
Ah, family life: you just can’t beat it.
* And yes – this time I am using it in the pejorative sense.
** Unnecessary trivia time: I named the protagonist in Cold Granite after my nephew. I thought it’d be something nice for him to brag about in school if the book ever got published. But this means that if any more nephews or nieces turn up in the future I’m probably going to have to write a book with them as the main character. Here’s hoping my siblings take that into account when choosing names for their offspring!
*** Well I am his uncle, so I’m allowed to be avuncular.