I just sent in the full  draft of  THE SECRET DAUGHTER, my latest book, and am wiped.

It’s always a rush to the end for me, as I try to tie in all the loose threads —and since this is the last book in the Brides of Bellaire Gardens series, there’s a need to tie in the series, too, I think.

It’s now with my editor in New York. She will read the manuscript, and give me feedback and make suggestions for revisions. I’m always very glad to receive those because by the time I finish a book, I can’t see the wood for the trees.

Once I have that, I will revise the manuscript again — hoping I can see it more clearly now, having had a break from it.

After that, if she’s happy with it, it will go to a copyeditor, who will correct any typos, and the occasional Australian/UK spelling that has slipped through, and generally make sure there are no mistakes.  Then it will come back to me, to look at those corrections and decide if I agree with them or not. (Spoiler alert — I don’t always.)

After that it will go back to my editor, who will give it a final check, and then send it to be laid out ready to print. That will then come back to me as a pdf, and I will give it one last check.  Surprisingly there is always a handful of small things that have slipped through the process, so I note them and send a report to my editor. The publisher will also appoint a proofreader.

And after all that, there is a long wait while the book is produced, printed and shipped out to bookshops.  Which is why traditionally published books take so much longer to produce than self published (indie) books.

So the draft is finished, but not the book, if that makes sense.
And in the meantime, I’m looking around me and making a list of everything I’ve neglected while the book dominated my life. It’s a long list, and not particularly thrilling. Starting with a little bit of house work, and then . . . TAX. Oh the joy!

I’ll tell you more about the characters and the story later. There’s another book coming out before this one. THE HEIRESS’S DAUGHTER comes out on May 21, 2024. To give you an idea of how long the process can take, I handed in the full draft of that story back in early March, 2023.
But I’ll talk about that story soon.