Thursday! Already, time seems to be going so quickly and I feel I am not getting any better, but then I won’t, not quickly. I am wakened by my partner this morning bringing me my usual hot water to start the day. Its good for my digestion and seems not to aggravate my body in any way. I check my emails and see I am to expect a phone call from a publisher this afternoon, so I check the links they have sent me. It is world book day and a friend sends me pictures of her two daughters dressed as Alice in Wonderland and Amelia Fang, a feisty ten year old vampire from the books of Laura Ellen Anderson. Amelia Fang was not around in my day so she is new to me but looks fun. Her daughters look splendid and has obviously put loads of effort into the costumes. I would like to share but that would be an intrusion. There was no world book day when I was at school and I suspect it would have passed me by if there had been one. I was well on my way along my dyslexia journey by their age and never got to read a book until I was fourteen when, after encouragement from a scout master called Doug Crook, I read Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. I was hooked and read everything he wrote. After that I moved from author to author reading everything that they had written, a trait that is still with me and a expensive one. I meet my match in Balzac, I never got through all 52 novels and I was devastated to find they are written as a sequence, which I had cut across. I moved on to another author. Any way today is world book day so it is apt that I should be talking to a publisher.

I finally get up for a late breakfast and then luxuriate in a bath listening to the Infinite Monkey Cage. This episode was from CERN and a light hearted discussion about the the Higgs Boson. Once wallowed I prepare for my phone call by rereading the information on the links sent to me. I also check my Amazon book account and discover that at least three more people have bought The Cancer Years: So Far. With my preparation done I draft the blog and then wait to see if my phone call actually happens.

To my pleasant surprise the woman from the book company rings me on time. She is very clear and had clearly read my emails to her and had a good idea what I was looking for. She explained that the company was a printers and did not have a publishing function. They would of course hold stock and send it out if I forwarded orders. In essence I need a distribution platform. I have my Amazon platform and my YouTube channel, but this is not enough. Alternatively I would need an agent. I am not sure that this vanity poet wants to become a business and have an agent. I thanked her for her help and clarity. So it seems that I either find an English publishing house or stick with the Americans. I decide to try the Americans again and send a short and to the point email and then settle down to read for the rest of the afternoon. To my surprise the Americans ring apologising for the mix up in the communications. We make a deal which means I get my next collection published and that both collections get published globally. I make my payment, get the receipt sent through and then send them the zip file with the collection and other pages in it. It gets acknowledged quickly so it seems I am now well into my second project. I’m going to be a global poet, mostly unread but available. This is true vanity poetry.

Having done the business with the Americans I start to watch a football match and each tea before my partner goes to her weekly singing lesson. I get a surprise call from a friend who has begun to complete a full return to work after battling long COVID. There are still of course bad days but she has managed to get to a situation she could not have contemplated some months ago. We talk about how we are and how our families are. Its a real pleasure to talk to someone outside the family and to share a conversation. We end our call as she collects one of her daughters from an after school activity. I return to the football and there I stay for most of the evening until I return to the blog for the day. I take my night meds and go to bed to read. I have publishing chores to do tomorrow, so the adventure continues, I just need to sort out the every day stuff.