Much frenetic emailing between yours truly and Bruce the Agent. BtA had a couple of technical issues he wanted to see addressed. (I’m guessing he had some traumatic encounters with Baptists at some point in his life.) All good points, though, hopefully accomplished without too much pain. Some issues have proven a little knotty to nail down – one of the difficulties about doing this stuff over email. But overall I think we’re pretty much in agreement. We both want the book to be as good as it can possibly be before we start sending it out.

Tomorrow brings coffee with my friend Allison, who has gamely read the whole thing from start to finish (good) and has promised to be absolutely honest about it when we meet (maybe not so good.) Naturally I’m apprehensive. So far the response to the book has been pretty positive but Allison is a writer and a poet, whose opinion I respect and value greatly, and I know that she will call this exactly as she sees it. She’s also the first person who’s read the book in more or less final form who doesn’t have a professional interest in it. So wish me luck. I shall report back.