Have done almost nothing for the past few days but sit on my bum and email, emails flying back and forth except when we’re telephoning. Nothing happened to this book for months, and now, suddenly, everything has to happen this weekend. Two days ago the designer Meghan and I talked about conveying movement, dancing, joy, colour. So she sent a cover:

which Jason, my trusty assistant and taste monitor, and many others didn’t like. Back and forth – what did we want, what was possible within timing and budget (including free stock images like this) – what colours, images, fonts, upper or lower case, centred or not. The designer sent another one that was very stark and dark, looked like an earnest poetry collection. Back and forth – let’s open up the font, the size, the colour palette. More back, more forth.

And we ended up with a winner:

Hooray!

I spent yesterday and this morning going over the proofs, accepting or rejecting edits – deleting a bunch of fiddly commas, arguing with the publisher about paragraphing. “Not negotiable!” he wrote, so he won. Had to write cover copy, author bio, and dedication, and edit the blurbs. All have gone to Meghan. Managed to fit in a walkabout with Debra, who’d made me a beautiful new mask, and a chat on the deck later with Carole, my dear Y companion.

Tomorrow I hope to have the document back for one final pass, however long it takes, and then, if all is well, it goes to the printer Monday. Hope to be holding a book by the end of August. We’ll make plans for some kind of Zoom launch in early September. And then, of course, vast wealth and fame will at last be mine. Mwa ha ha!

And then it will be time to start something new.

PS Channelling the very stable genius who is President of the United States, my friend and student Brad just wrote, “Person.  Loose Woman.   Man.    Camera.   TV.” 

LOL!