A confusion of book...why I Don't Want to Talk About It is like a large poo..

Well, that's it on book number nine - I just turned in the final edits today! Which is weird because book number eight (clue...this one)

has only just been released into the wild.  It's odd, this publishing whirl, because the book that is uppermost in your mind is always the book you are currently working on - in my case that's the Bronze Age timeslip, Living in the Past. Next uppermost, or to put it more succinctly, bobbing around just under the surface, like that 'thing' in the garden pond that you hope is a frog but rather suspect is a large poo, is the book that you're just editing, which is I Don't Want to Talk About It - the book I've just turned in those final edits for.  Next one down in the geological layers which are my brain is the book I've just finished writing, which is the Tea Shop Book, which has had several different titles but is most commonly known as Crush.Then, and only then, do I get to the book which has just been released, ie, How I Wonder What You Are. Which leads to an awful scenario..thus..

Questioner (usually someone looking for a topic of conversation): How is your book doing?
Me (in my normal state of baffled-but-pleased-someone-is-talking-to-me): Oh, not too badly. A bit sticky in places though.
Q: Really? What, like with jam?
M: Well, with ideas, mostly. I've got a really difficult plot point 3,000 years ago.
Q: But it's already out, isn't it?
M: Er. (slowly) What does the cover look like?
Q: You don't know what the cover of your own book looks like?

And then I go for a bit of a lie down.  I have no idea how authors who have three or four books out every year get on - they probably just say "fine," whenever they're asked how the book is doing, just on general principle. Anyway. This being a Bank Holiday weekend, and half term and everything, I am off to do a bit of Bronze Age research, only not the uncomfortable, living-without-pants, sort of research, no. I rather thought I'd wander wistfully around some Bronze Age sites, pat some stones, gaze into the distance whilst saying 'of course, this would all have been covered in trees, you know' and then find a really nice tea shop for a sit down and a cake.

And worry about what that 'thing' bobbing around in the pond actually is..

Poo not shown.