-30-

[desperance]

When you transmute lead into gold - or indeed spin straw into gold - I wonder if the transition is lossy? If it is, then there may be hope yet. I have finished the edit on 'River of the World', and really all I've done is cut. There were 188,000 words; there are now 152,000. It may be okay, or it may be entirely the other thing. Whatever. For now, it is finished, and I have sent it off to my editor, my agents and my friends.

Feedback, no doubt, will occur. In the meantime - well, who knows? Immediately, I am going to finish this bottle of wine. After that, come what will...