Although … hmm … Although … might it be good for me (for my wayward spirit) to try and be a little bit more considered – a little bit more careful – in general? Doesn’t Richard Grannon often say that the urge to ‘naive innocence’ is a neurotic one? Is my urge to create uninhibitedly a neurotic one, therefore?

Shouldn’t a person’s Inner Child (cf. I’m OK – You’re OK) be gently curbed by their Inner Adult on the odd occasion?

When I consider how obliging the other characters have been … I mean Charles has been incredibly helpful. He didn’t turn a hair when I exaggerated his ‘collections’ into wholesale hoarding. He accepted that it worked as a kind of extended metaphor in the text. And he hates the name Charles but accepts that it’s suitably bland and uncontentious with a ‘royal’/‘sovereign’ undertow.

I am Sovereign.

I am Sovereign!

I am Sovereign.

I am Queen of my own serenity.

Yes.

peaceful entry

(Sorry – this is just a note I left on the page to remind myself of something else.)

Abigail (who is now Jewish, and called Avigail, although Charles keeps forgetting this and calling her Abigail, which has my poor copy-editor, Morag, literally pulling her hair out) is tremendously obliging. And this runs counter to her character, which is fractious, at best.

Ying Yue? Who can tell with Ying Yue? Who knows what Ying Yue will do next? Although there was an interesting sub-plot with her brother – Fei Hung – which she suddenly went cold on and I suspect this was Gyasi’s malign influence. I’m not certain what it entailed, but I think it involved Fei Hung getting a graduate student pregnant during his time studying Business Law at the University of Bangor.

Huh.

‘Golden Child’.

And Wang Shu is still none the wiser.

I am going back to Chapter 2. It will take me literally a couple of lines to rework the whole thing …

So, from page 57, two paras down.

‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.

As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a tiny, elderly man who is wearing a giant pair of dark glasses and holding a white cane. He is standing next to a large, blue, waste disposal bin. He is perfectly still.

The blind old man is illumined.

I have actually changed the font into AMERICAN TYPEWRITER as a gentle ‘screw you’ to Gyasi ‘Chance’ Ego – Ebo

Ebo Ebo.

The revised version runs:

‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.

As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a handsome, dark-skinned, willowy youth who is leaning, nonchalantly, against a large, blue waste disposal bin. Avigail’s eyes return to him, several times, slightly perplexed, to peruse his pretty, yellow raincoat (there is no sign of rain).

This yellow raincoat man is illumined.

I don’t think it works so well. Begs more questions. But what the heck. It’ll do.