I'm unable to come to the keyboard

Well, obviously that isn't quite true.

BUT: I'm getting into the gold book, and the first design draft of Curious Minds has come back from the editor.  This is a history for adult readers, the story of many of the naturalists and natural history painters who flourished in Australia's pre-colonial and colonial past.  It is due to be published in October, 2012,

Now one of the givens of writing is a certain amount of drudgery.  Editors get loads of it when writers get sloppy, but they are good about making writers get unsloppy.

A sensitive writer may whimper slightly at the load, but any sensible writer gets into it, because a stern editor, a demanding editor, is the writer's friend.  One of the changes that I see for the future is a sad decline in writing standards as people bundle e-books onto the market without care, caution, editing or design.  All of those are part of writing a book.

I have only ever had one editor I didn't like, and he was an idiot with no science training who tried to correct my text so that it matched his stupidity.  Luckily, I have had no idiots in the past 30 years.

So, I am whimpering a bit, but getting into the work, and not blogging for a few days.  Then I will try to drag together the threads of gold and get back into that.  Luckily, I leave myself notes in blue italics across the ms of things that need doing.

Catch you in a week or so.