I am pretty much finished rewriting Somewhere Else. Phew! It is a great feeling.

This is a particularly interesting time for me because it is when other people get really involved in the book. Most of the time an author works in complete, or near complete, isolation. Now though, I am working on getting together some character drawings of the inhabitants of Else and doing further work to revamp this site. Other goodies are in the works. Various readers have been giving me feedback on the book (It has been great to hear more responses to the story). All this involves reaching out to a lot of people and being unafraid to show them what I am doing with all its warts and bumps. I love the contact and the discussions these processes generate.

I have also been contacting schools in the real world neighborhoods of my fictional characters. My hope is that some students will read for me and tell me what would make the children in my story more real to them. Unfortunately, I am finding that often, when faced with someone claiming to be an author from half a world away, school principals not unreasonably suspect they are being pranked!

I live in hope. It would be so exciting to have contact with teachers and students in West Ham, the Bronx, Sapporo, Minnesota, St Petersberg and the exotic locale of Twizel! What might they tell me about my characters that I didn’t already know? I will update this blog with any news I have of success and reports on what the kids tell me.

But right now? I have to hurry along my archery expert (is what I did to those bows really ok?) and see if I can track down a martial artist. All part of the proofing process. And so much fun!