Aaargghh!

There's acknowledgements, half a page or more of them.  There's thanks to umpteen specialists for advice and information.  Thanks for encouragement, for wifely love.
There's reference to, and more thanks for, the editing.
But no-one seemed to know that there's no such thing, on Scotland's east cost, as a heron gull!

Conversation over a pint

“The first was that Eddie Cochran song –"
“Blimey – that’s going back a bit.”
“Teens, yeah, but the sounding like something else, the mis-hearing, came later ... Seventies, ‘Winter of Discontent’ and all that.  Which reminds me, did I tell you about when we went to see Richard III at Stratford, Robert Lindsay?”
“Yeah you did ... discount tents, yeah?”
“Aye.  The Eddie Cochran one was more annoying – kept sounding like ‘ASLEF carries on ... and things do go wrong,  just follow steps one, two and three ...”
“ASLEF?”
“The railway union.   On strike, and forever in the bloody news.  Later, it was the ‘terror pork chops’ ...”
“Wha-a-t?”
“Tape you did for me.  Bon Jovi.  Turned out he was saying something about Tarot cards ...”
“Right ...   It was Dire Straits did it for me –"
“Oh yes, that sexy voice –"
“Not so much that.   More sex gone wrong.   Going wrong, potential for.  Teenage again ...”
“Don’t know what you mean ...”
“Well, something to do with the girl I was going out with at the time ... he kept going on about ‘I recall my fall from Grace’ and I could see myself, if I ever did make any progress, making such an almighty cock-up of it that she pushed me out of bed!”

[This written for Word Prompt no.35 on House of Writers - http://houseofwriters.ning.com/]

Self-Edit course - all done

And although the group - which was a huge and unanticipatedly beneficial  part of the experience - and the exercises and the feedback will remain accessible for ever, to be continued for as long as we want it to - is still functioning; the input of Debi Alper as tutor is no more.  Emma Darwin's vast store of common-sense advice and writing wisdom can, of course, be accessed via 'This Itch of Writing'

So there is a certain bereftness, a sadness that it's all over.  And also an eagerness to put to good use what I've learned, which has been considerable.

And I can thoroughly recommend the course as a way  to proceed once you've got that ms to the point where you think it might be done:  http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Self-Editing.html

February Femmes Fatales

Just received my copy of February Femmes Fatales, 275 pages of 'horror, gritty crime and sultry noir' - including one tale from me, entitled 'That Cat Steven's Song'.

It's available (with a peek) from http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1494731878/ref

Self-editing - last post

Six weeks has flown by, usefully and enjoyably.  And worth every penny, for the friends made, the insights and skills learnt and for the fact that I now know where to take my book next, and why.
Debi Alper asks questions.  Difficult questions that I can, for a while, ignore, hands over ears, muttering "yes but ..."
In the end it's not so much that I can't ignore as it becomes so bloody obvious.  A 'light bulb moment' as she is fond of saying.