Hi!
Yesterday, I went down to Penguin HQ and nutted out the final changes to Thai-riffic! Heather went through her comments for half the manuscript. She’s a really cool editor, trimming words and scenes to keep the pace flowing.  

She’s laid her fresh eyes on the text, seeing things that made her just stop and wonder what I’m on about. Even I don’t know half the time hehe. Sometimes I add zany descriptions for the sake of it-but all it does is just distract the reader from the main story.  

So less is more. Plus it gives the jokes more time to shine, as opposed to being a jokey minefield of hit and misses.

We also got rid of anything that made Lengy sound too mean. Lengy’s a really likeable character and there’s an innocent playfulness to his jokes and thoughts. He might be annoyed with his family, but he still loves them dearly.

I have to confess, I really suck at seeing my own mistakes. Maybe I’m too close to it. I’m glad that she’s pointing them out to me, so I can rework or change things. This may the last time I ever really get to have Lengy inside my head.

I’m loving how the design is coming along. My awesome illustrator Evi has all these interesting ideas of how to present certain parts of my story. It’s not strictly all text which I love-it was something that I had in mind for Thai-riffic! I guess the text just lends itself to wacky pictures and comic strips. It’s not going to be as full blown as Andy Griffiths’ Just series or The Diary of the Wimpy Kid books. But it’ll certainly add to the stories. I’m dying to show some of her pictures!

I bought my own stick figure strips and ideas for the illustrations. Who knows, Lengy might be in animated form sometime down the track, as a book trailer or something even more!

The process is so organic, everything’s falling into place as we draw closer to December, when everything has to be finalised.

Bring it on!

O.W