Spreading it thin

I have been rushed off my feet getting these "last" corrections to The Falconer's Knot done but I think we'll get it off to the printer just about on time. I feel very split, since I now have only two chapters left of the adult novel to write and the ideas are tumbling over themselves and must be disciplined. I've also satrted to research the next teenage novel so it's hard sometimes to find a quiet space in which to rest my brain. Insomniac again, which is not surprising.

Non-writers don't understand that we almost all work on more than one book at a time, at any of a book's possible stages. I shall be on a Scattered Authors Society (SAS) retreat next week and it will be good to be entirely among those who lead the same crazy working life.

I took a few hours off to have lunch with two friends from the Italian class (one is French) and they were both very helpful on the subject of from where on the French coast you can see Mont St. Michel and be in a village with a sandy beach. I had quite the wrong spot and I obviously need Genets in Normandy.

We have had three e-mails from Jess in India and she is having a wonderful time. Her CFS in under control and she writes very well about the temples and mosques she has seen. She is about to hit the desert at Jaisalmer.

Spent an hour on the phone today talking to a loively Scottish woman who has written a children's book and wanted to give her royalties to the Lebanon. I have also recently sent a critique to someone whom I knew when she was a child and who has now written her own book and I have waiting forme to comment upon, a sheaf of poems and short stories from a friend's son. So I have just turned down the request of another chap to read and endorse his children's book. I felt bad saying no, even though I don't know him, but sometimes I just have to steel myself.

Made five pots of apricot, two of damson and eight of plum jam since my last blog. But we have a washing-up bowl full of apples to deal with now. We were going to go balckberrying at the weekend but I wouldn't have had time to deal with all fruit. Maybe next Sunday.

We did get to Buscot Park for a few hours yesterday though and saw the ravishing Briar Rose panels by Burne-Jones.They'd make wonderful book jackets.