Bizarre Writing Experiences

So I have my ebook up on Amazon, and am still trying to get my paperback published. I ordered a proof copy and it arrived last week which was a happy day indeed. Back in the real world, the next day we had to call an ambulance for my 90 year old mother. When she eventually stabilised and went to sleep in the Accident and Emergency unit, I took out my proof copy of the book and started going through it line by line, making notes of the changes needed. At one stage I thought: this is just weird. When I imagined being a writer, I never envisaged proofing the copy of my first book at 2 am in A&E! But there you are. I felt quite like Harry Three Paws on the ladder – how did I end up here?! There was a moment of black comedy as I prepared to leave her the next morning, when she said that my eyes were very bloodshot! I said I couldn’t imagine why that was. (Nothing to do with being up for thirty hours straight without sleep, or going line by line through a book in the fluorescent light of A&E!) All part of life’s rich tapestry. It is now five days later, my mother will be discharged in two days and I have just ordered my second proof copy. I hope to do the final proofing in a less dramatic setting, like at the desk I share with Sid the cat!  I’ll get there yet. So if you are struggling towards publication, hang in there and waste no opportunity to get more work done – no matter where that might be.