It's been a very peculiar weekend.

Those of you who follow me on twitter know that my little calico cat, Ayesha, was finally put out of her pain earlier today. From a little, bright-eyed bat-eared kitten that I brought home in a box, she's been the most gentle kind and loving creature - a ditsy blonde, full of affection, with a little voice that cried for love. She was an empath cat - it's never been possible to be near The Eesh and upset without her coming to you and mewing in distress, butting you to make both of you feel better. In her last days she was being eaten from the inside by cancer; in her last hours she was sat in the garden in the sun with her family stroking her gently.

Her bonkers Tortie sister, Lilith, is wandering the house bemused - and getting lots of love.

In the light of losing Ayesha, the strong positive feedback from my potential publisher has kind of got lost. I should doing a squeeee-wall-of-death at this point - but it's both surreal and too real, somehow and oddly distant. It's surreal because it's been so long that I can't quite get my head round it; too real because I have many writer friends and few starry-eyed illusions. One subplot needs a complete rewrite (and not the one I thought it would be - that'll teach me) and there are other freaky tweakies that were mentioned.

I have some ideas of my own about how I could improve and streamline the story, but I guess I have to wait for that whole 'second draft' thing.

Anyway, random mutterings about two books and optioning a third (it's early days and I am so green behind the fucking ears with this stuff I feel like ten kinds of frog) may well spin out to nothing, I don't know. I want to squeeee - but I almost don't dare.

Maybe the line between 'perspective' and 'pessimism' got lost under the weight of the little cat, finally and peacefully asleep in my lap. Right now, it's all a bit overwhelming and I may well have too many whiskey toddies this evening.

This has been very self-indulgent - sorry about that.

I'm sure the giant squeeeee will come in a bit :)