Slightly less of a panic pertained by the end of play yesterday – which was actually in the early hours of this morning. Intensive editing carved 4,000 words out of the manuscript, suggesting that the task is doable in the time. The process now is not so much writing the book, as unwriting it. That is how Booker and I wrote The Great Deception. We assembled all the material in a vast, chronological narrative, stitched it altogether, and then trimmed it to size. Progress is each day is measured by how many words you lose, and I have to carve out about 50,000.

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Busy you may be. Of the 'left' you never are.

Dr North, Just take care....you had a "ticker" scare a while ago.....

That is a very evocative post for me. It brings back to mind something I've never thought of for at least sixty years: "Michael Angelo strikes the rock and brings forth Moses".

It was a coloured frontispiece in a volume of Arthur Mee's Childrens' Encyclopaedia and showed Michael Angelo with chisel and hammer in hand apparently hitting a stone wall and Moses appearing as if by magic. When I first saw it I was too young to understand just what the title of the illustration was trying to tell me and I remember I honestly believed as a very young child that Moses had somehow been cemented into the rocks and this bloke Michael Angelo had released him.

Fortunately my comprehension came on swiftly in leaps and bounds and the unknown sacrifices my parents had made to purchase that ten (twelve?) volume red leather bound set of books paid dividends. I wish I had them now.

Thank you for restoring a memory to me. Such things are precious to me nowadays.

p.s. Do take care. I've just read another message from another poster and I'd forgotten about your heart scare. (I forget things not just from 60 years ago, you know!)

Kind regards.

Awake well rested & yes, take good care.

Yes, please take care and rest.

And I promise to buy your book

Best of luck with the book. I too always hated deadlines, despite the obvious need for them - to make sure I got the 3 books I did on the Solomons & Vanuatu finished. And also the final, almost endless, process of checking where the comma's & dashes etc all should be - for maximum clarity. If it's any consolation, based on the evidence of all your previous work, I am sure your latest book will be excellent!

Watchet

@HenryWood - I had the Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopaedia as well. I don't know where our set went; fell to bits I suppose.

Here is a link to Volume 1 which may bring back some memories http://issuu.com/diggers/docs/child-encyc-mee-volume1-529-724

Good luck! What is the target publication date? I'm looking forward to this.
Ed

I'm have great admiraton for your work output and content but you really should try and 'listen to your body' and pace yourself a little more as the world wouldn't end if you took the odd extra coffee break and went to bed earlier!

That's my sentiments as well Dr. North.Also if you were to go sooner than expected,who would do your most carefully researched work?

Yes, Mrs EU Referendum is being quite stern on this.

It seems an impossibly long time, now to get worked up about it, but the launch date is 15 November ... and for a very good reason ... the real Battle of Britain day!

15 November, just in time for my Christmas list. I look forward to reading it.