All finished!

Whoa yes. It's done.

Fairytale of New York is finally complete and on its way to the printers at last!

I'm not sure what the correct term for completing a book is... In the can? On the shelf? On the van on the way to the printers before it gets to the shelf? Whatever, it's done, finished, fin. I completed the final edits yesterday (a week early, quite chuffed with that) and sent it happily zipping off to its next big adventure in the land of print.

To be honest, I was dreading this edit because it had come back to me after a copyeditor had gone through it... Being a copywriter myself, there was a certain amount of professional pride at stake, so I was praying I hadn't made any glaringly awful grammatical errors that she would swoop on with cries of glee (an occupational hazard for anyone who works with words). But, to my surprise, I actually enjoyed this edit more than either the structural or dastardly line edits - because I actually got to read my novel! I've added so many new things over the course of the various edits that I hadn't really read the book in its entirety - so it was fabulous to see how it's grown and developed since the first draft that I uploaded onto Authonomy last September. Huge thanks to Yvonne Holland for finding all my daft mistakes!

I'm really proud of the finished result and can't wait to see what other people think of it. All the hard work has definitely paid off and I now have a finished story that I'm completely proud of. Roll on November 12th!

Just remind me of this euphoria when I'm stuck in line editing hell next year, won't you??