For some reason, on a Sunday afternoons lately, my house turns into the town square, there seems to be so many people coming and going. By three o’clock I had four separate lots of visitors all turn up at pretty much the same time — that’s four grownups and five kids under six — two of them trying to scam/guilt/beg/and or bribe me into babysitting. In a fairly straightforward game of “first in, best dressed” Firstborn won by a hair, by asking me to mind Dace so she could go to the movies a split second before another friend was about to beg the same favour. LOL

But too many friends aside — could I have a better problem — I did have a successful day before the invasion began. I got another chapter of Gods of Amyrantha done. (Killed a king and queen today — always a good way to work up an appetite, I say.)

My little assistant came in today, too, so we got even more of the receipts done and had Hungry Jacks’ for lunch which she thought was just the coolest thing ever... my, they’re so easy to please at that age…

On the down side, a parcel turned up yesterday with the typeset copies for the new Australian editions of Medalon and Treason Keep for my perusal, proofreading and approval.

Oh god… now I have to read them again.

You might think this is an odd statement from the author of these works, but with Medalon in particular, I have read it so many times I can almost recite it by heart.

• First there were the countless readings during the three years it took me to write it.
• Then there was the rewrites.
• Then the structural edit.
• Then the line edit.
• Then the three typeset proofreads.
• Then it got published and I had to read in book form just to make sure it was real.
• And then we sold it to the US. And they had to translate it into “American English” for the hardcover edition. So we had another line edit.
• Then another three proofreads.
• And then the US publishers sold it to the UK. And they had to translate it back into “English English” for the UK edition. Again with the line edits.
• And the multiple proofreads
• And then the US paperback was due out and they wanted another two proofreads (one before and one after the corrections were made)
• And then I had to write the prequel series… so I had to read the whole damn series again before I started and at least twice during the writing of Wolfblade, Warrior and Warlord, to make sure I kept the stories straight.

And then HarperCollins says” let’s re-release the Demon Child Trilogy with new covers to match the Hythrun Chronicles.

Oh goodie, says I, like an idiot. Can I fix a couple of little things?

No problem, says my patient and ever supportive editor. How many changes did you want to make?

Er…438…

Never fear, they are tiny, niggly little things that have irked me (and only me) since Medalon was first published. They are now fixed and nobody but me will even notice.

Which kinda makes me wonder why I bothered…

Word count: 56,542