It’s been an interesting month. Oh yes. Maybe you can’t imagine how much fun it has been going through every page of my copy, looking for the absolutely correct way to give a page reference. It has to be exactly this: (p.67) Indentation of paragraphs, too. Not forgetting “double inverted commas” and ‘single ones’. And italics. It all has to be dead right.

It seems that publishers no longer have what they called desk editors, that is in-house people who sort out incoming texts. These people are now free-lancers, and the publishers pay – so the publishers now want the text to come in pretty well ready to go. Luckily, a relative of mine introduced me to a very nice one such person, who was generous with her time and advice. I’m very grateful to her.

Still, I reflect, it takes me ages to do all this, and it would take someone who knows what she’s doing only a morning. ‘Tis the way of the world.