Nearing the finish line...

So I am nearing the end, about to cross the finish line.  I'm in my final chapter of book three, around 46,000 words and currently charging towards the end.

I'll finish it this week, hopefully have a quick read through for any glaring errors and then send on to my wonderful critique partners.  At this point, my terrible grammer will be highlighted.  My fondness for particular words will be found.  My glaring medical errors or timescale issues will come to light.  

And the - Oh NO!  You can't do THAT!!!  Will also be open for critique.

But that's what you need.  Often I can't see something that my critique partners will spot straight away.  Often I will highlight a sentence that I've rewritten ten times and say "this just doesn't sound right" and a few taps of the keyboard from a critique partner will show me what I've meant to say all along.

Then there is the missing gaps.

You know - that things that were in my head all along for this book, that have just never made it on to the page.  And I thought they had.

So, I'll get asked the question - BUT WHY????????????  And I'll realise I haven't written it down anywhere!

I'm lucky.  I have another month before I need to send my manuscript to my editor.  So that will give me a few weeks to set it aside - enjoy the RNA conference in Wales - make any amendments my critique partners suggest (maybe even hopefully get to read something of theirs!) and then press SEND.

And while that sounds fabulous, we all know at that point the crows of doubt start to circle......

So, do you like finishing and pressing send??

Oh dear.......

My addiction has struck again. Someone mugged me in Glasgow City Centre yesterday and flung this bag at me!  No - honestly they did!
Radley addiction is a serious business.  Does anyone know a cure???

My first book cover!!!!!

So, drumroll please..................here it is my first book cover!!!!!
This is real, it isn't some wild fantasy I've cooked up in my head or dreamed up at night.  I really DO have a book cover posted on Amazon.
So what do I think?  Well, I am a tiny bit disappointed the writing isn't in red - but that's just me.
What can you expect from someone called Scarlet?

And blogger still hates me.  I can sign in to put up a new post, but it doesn't recognise my sign in for commenting on any pages.  Including my own.  I am now named Anonymous.  I have to go and use someone else's computer for it to work.  So what's wrong with mine?  Can anyone give me a clue?

The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award

So, thank you Rachael Johns for this award.  Now I need to think up 10 random facts to share with other bloggers.  And since I've done something similar, I really need to find 10 different facts....

1. My book that is due published in September - It Started With A Pregnancy, is really the book of my heart.  To sum it up, a diabetic midwife falls pregnant and starts to freak when she realises she can't control her diabetes the way she used to.  Been there and done that.  Twice.  For someone who has spent their life knowing when a hypoglycaemic attack is about to hit, and could usually always avert it, to have a total change of condition and have NO signs of oncoming hypos is/was terrifying.  I could have normal, rational conversations with people with a blood sugar of 1.2 (normal is between 4 and 7, hypo warning signs usually show when it drops under 4).  Even my family were freaked by it.  And for a control freak like me, well....
2. I'm a trained nurse and health visitor.  I've worked in medical wards, orthopaedics and coronary care.  I've also worked as a District Nurse and as a health visitor I was addicted to the smell - yes, the smell - of newborn babies.  You really didn't want me near your child!
3. My favourite kids were the ones who refused to do the assessments.  The ones who threw the bricks off the wall instead of building a tower.  The ones who you tried to coax to say five single words and all they would say was NO.  The ones who wouldn't draw a circle or a cross but would look you in the eye and take the crayon along the wall.  I like kids with spunk.
4. As a student I was once asked to put cream on someone's APRON.  I was working in the ward from hell, with the Sister from hell, so I pulled the curtains, armed with my tub of cream and thought "Wherever the apron is I'm going to get it."  The poor patient had cream from the top of their forehead to the tips of their toes.  Incidentally, the APRON is the roll of fat that hangs over your belly!
5. I once auditioned for ballet school in Glasgow, but wasn't really sure I wanted to go.  I did ballet, tap , modern and jazz dancing until I was 16.
6. I used to be a good girl.  At school I was known as a goody two-shoes.  I've never done drugs and didn't start drinking alcohol until I was 19.  Please note, I said used.
7. My radley bag collection (from the last post like this) has unfortunately grown.  I now have 18 bags, and a suitcase (which isn't that great!).  All the bags are absolutely essential and none of them I can do without.
8. I wrote my first Mills and Boon when I was 17.  It was a medical and was called Hidden Love and involved a typewriter and that horrible tippex white paper for whenever you made a mistake.  Funnily enough I got a standard R, as it would now be known, and took myself off in a huff for a bit.  I didn't write my next one until 2009.
9. I'm taking my beloved and my kids to Eurodisney this year at Christmas and we are going to stay in the Disney Hotel at the park entrance, all with my M & B advance!
10. I have two wonderful critique partners for whom I am extremely grateful.  Nancy (Sheandeen on eharlequin) and Rachael Johns, both take a bow.  I am not going to forget that I couldn't have got published without you!

PHEW!!!!!!!!!!  All done!

Now, I would love to pass this on to others.  Feel free to download the pic and participate!