Gaaah as Bridget Jones Says

Just when I thought it was safe to come out of the garrett I got an email from the production editor of my Gigha book, telling me that it is about 30 pages short of the required 300. There is an index and lots of wonderful old pictures to come, but can we also find some more material for the appendices? Actually, there is a piece of place name research from the 1940s which I had drawn on quite heavily. I had acknowledged it very fully, but wanted to include the whole thing as an appendix, since it is out of print, hard to obtain but very useful for future place name researchers. It might do very well. We'll see.
I found myself wondering what makes me so uncharacteristically prickly about this process. Why? Why? As Bridget also says. Then I had a flash of insight, mainly due to the fact that I have been simultaneously working on a dramatisation of one of my own stage plays, for BBC radio. Whenever the director phones me about it, she seems to take the opportunity to tell me how much she likes it. Now I'm not expecting unadulterated praise from my publisher, but don't they know how paranoid authors can become? Why has nobody, so far, uttered the words 'Nice work Catherine.'
Why? Why?
Gaaah!

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