Yesterday I sent what I hope is the final draft of the book to the editor. I could endlessly tweak, add, re-edit... but it has to stop: it has to be finished.
I am very grateful to Martin Greaves for reading through it and giving me useful feedback, to David Sheppard for looking at an early draft and being really encouraging, and to Sarah Killick whose transcription skills finally got the thing moving. And more than 30 women who agreed to be interviewed: well, thank you indeed.
So today, I'm at work as usual with an array of bananas on the desk. This evening I'm doing more work with Johny Brown on his songs, as second guitarist for the gig at The Lexington on the 21st of March, and tomorrow I'm going to record some new songs with Ian Button. Only two, I thought, but there's another one with temporary lyrics, and also some songs already there recorded that I could do some overdubs on to. And I'm really looking forward to both those things.
By the end of the week I'll know about the gigs for the first part of the year, and I can start fussing on about those: some with Pauline Murray and Johny, both solo, a couple with The Flatmates and some on my own, as well as The Lexington.
I'm waiting for a student who hasn't turned up, but (don't tell anyone) I don't mind. I worked a humungously hard week last week with a day with 12 scheduled tutorials over six hours, and this week I'm visiting a new placement host organisation as well as teaching. I have started giving the song writing students rapid-fire exercises to do. Last week's was a song for the Queen's 100th birthday, and this week will be an eight-line song to sing about homeless people in the street, with a chorus that passers-by can't forget. Let's see what they come up with.
The Green Goddess is here beside me, a bit like a faithful familiar. She is waiting for action and I've done a bit of playing already, cautiously. My fingernails are frail and feeble which means that my wintertime diet has been lacking. They only need to last another couple of days.
Come on guys, you can do it, I know you can!
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