Since my self-edited third draft was submitted to my agent, CUCKOO has now gone through two edits at his hands, two more with Leah my lovely Headline editor, and this, here, is the final copy-edit. It is a hand-edited hard copy, which was delivered to me by the royal mail, and I am to mark up my changes in coloured pen, so that Leah can then go through everything so it is dead letter perfect for the typesetters – after which changes get expensive.

It is exciting to see a hard copy print out – I tend to work on screen, but when I reach the end of a draft I print it out two pages to a sheet to scribble on. This is the first time a hard copy has been sent back and forth, and it feels like an enormous responsibility. For one thing I might lose it. For another, I might mess it up. I go out and buy a purple pen and some tipp-ex.