RARGH.
So, I initially "finished" the book I recently sold late last summer. But we didn't sellit until February (and I didn't get paid until May, and am still due another chunk of cash from America) because my agent kept making me revise and tweak it, even when I was thinking "...surely it's at least sellable as it is? And I could do this editing with an actual editor WHILE BEING PAID?"
The last phase of this was the most unspeakably miserable time for me. Let me tell you sometime about living in an unheated office building in King's Cross in October when it never stops raining, you have no money, no secure roof over your head, and your brain decides to wage a hate campaign against you. But not right now.
(For sheer biographical drama, I am actually quite glad I did the property guardianship thing for a while. The bit liiving by the British Museum in a solicitors chambers, chasing mice around my bedroom with a riding crop* at two in the morning, wandering into Soho at midnight to buy tiny cakes, had a certain Bohemian panache. But if you want advice on whether to do it yourself, my considered view is NO FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T IT'S TERRIBLE.)
But anyway, I did the work.
And I just found out... I did it for NO REASON. The version she sold? Is the version BEFORE. She plainly got her drafts mixed up. When I thought "surely we could sell this as it is" I WAS RIGHT.
OH THAT'S JUST FINE I LOVE POVERTY AND MISERY EVEN MORE WHEN THEY'RE COMPLETELY POINTLESS.
I just threw three entirely innocent My Little Ponies across the room in disgust.
*picks them up.*
*breathes*
Okay, my editors seems to be picking up some similar (but not identical!) issues I can use some of the work, the main thing is I am not there now, but FUCK ALIVE HOW COULD SHE.
*I have a riding crop because my aunt rode horses when she was 14 and my mother found the crop when she cleared out my grandfather's house and obviously when someone thrusts a riding crop at you and says "Do you want this?" you say yes and put in the Weapons Corner along with the sword.