Tropical flowers, near White Beach, Moalboal, Philippines

Variations in pronunciation can cause moments of concern.

While walking towards the village for lunch, I am often passed by chaps on scooters. They invariably yell as they pass, “Motorbike, white bitch?”

This would seem a tad unkind. They are taxi drivers offering one a ride to White Beach. Which isn’t a very exciting destination.

My mate Jon Evans, ye actual published novelist, has now joined me and is writing his next as I complete my first.

Editing has progressed and I have completed my first revision. I’ve found continuity errors (rooms where there are four single beds when there are plainly five people in the group), tense errors, and sheer errors of judgement.

I’ve also had to write myself out of a number of technical corners and complete a few hanging plot-points I’d forgotten about.

One of the trickiest was figuring out my escape craft’s velocity to re-enter the atmosphere from 35,000 kilometres. Just how many rockets will one need to then fly half-way across the planet to crash-land in Africa? You think Baumgartner had a long way to fall?

A small amount of structural adjustment has followed.

Editing produces far fewer words than does writing, but the work is now up to 71,000 words. Sitting and comparing notes with Jon, he dug up his first novel, Dark Places (in which I play a cameo), and casually remarked, “Oh, that was 88,000.”

Now I feel all small and puny.