It’s a late Saturday afternoon in winter, that sliding into dusk time when your body and your mind agree that really, you have no business being outside at this time of year, at this time of day. It’s time to hibernate until tomorrow.

I do feel that way, but this feeling is wrapped around a kernel of excitement. Why?

I HAVE FOUND MY EDITOR!

Writing a novel is a set of tiny steps – for me it’s been stop-start as my story has evolved over time, but essentially it went something like this:

• Idea – scribble down random notes on old envelopes, the Notes app on your phone, paper taken from the printer and so on
• Zero draft – the roughest of rough writing, it may not be chronological, there are huge plot holes and no structure whatsoever, but you’re getting it down – mostly on the commute to and from work
• Run out of steam – you’re not a plotter, more of a pantser. Now you wish you were a plotter. Put it to one side for a l-o-n-g time
• First draft – pick your writing back up and tear your hair out as you try to piece together the story from the chaos of the zero draft. Change the tense. Change the sex and the name of one of your main characters. Change the theme to more suit your state of mind. Change the world (not the actual world, the world of your story).
• Second draft – finish it before the end of 2019. Come back to it after New Year and think – hell, what was I thinking? The ending is crap. Should this be the first of a two part novel? That’s too much pressure… WTAF?!
• Third and fourth draft – bugger. Here comes the pandemic. A dystopian novel, with a pandemic in the background right now? Really? Time out.
• Fifth draft – suck it 2020. This book is not going to disappear. And besides, you’ve brainstormed the issues, you’ve (wait for it!) drafted out a plot. You can do this. End of 2020 – you’ve done it. Happy New Year.
• Print it all out. All 85,000 or so words of it. Read it, use your red pen. Wow – those typos are sneaky little sods aren’t they?
• Source potential editors.

And here we are – editor found! I’m so excited! It’s another step in the process, but a vitally important one. Having survived the sample edits, I’m really looking forward to finishing my own line edit (if you can decipher terrible handwriting, please let me know!) and sending my book child away for scrutiny.

I want Anti-Virus to be the best that it can be.

It deserves it.