The moment I have been waiting for, yet somehow dreading, has arrived.  The edited draft of my Cardiff book was delivered to me this week and now I must do all the updates, amendments, deletions, additions and second thoughts that have piled up in the two years since I handed over the manuscript.  Despite 90% of the original manuscript ending up on the cutting-room floor it’s still 300+ pages; you will need your heavy-duty bag-for-life when you buy it at Waterstones (and you will buy it, won’t you?).

I now have a daunting organisational and intellectual task ahead of me to bring all this to fruition – and I’m not really in the mood.  I don’t want to be hunched over a keyboard in what I laughingly call “the office” throughout the Autumn, I’d much prefer to be ligging round town or wandering up the Wenallt.  But in the next few days I will get my act together, take a deep breath and get stuck in – well, I have no alternative really.

This is unknown territory for me, so I have no idea how long this edit of the edit will take.  One month?  Two?  What I do know is that I’m going to be really pushed for time.  I will continue blogging and answering emails during this period, but probably with less frequency and promptness than usual.

The aim is the Pulitzer Prize – it being of greater cash value than the Welsh Book of the Year award.  NOTE FROM NON-EXISTENT PROOF-READER: Hey, smartass, the Pulitzer Prise is only $10,000, Wales pays more.