Yesterday I went for a long walk despite needing to be finishing structural edits.

Discombobulated I was (love that word), and I needed an untangling session.

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I’d believed I was nearly there with straightening out and layering my next Tuscan book. On track to send it a day before we leave for our little holiday in Puglia. But my lovely editor at #Bookouture sent me an e mail out of the blue. She was apologetic about the timing, but had come up with some fresh ideas. The rug pulled from under my feet, all at sea, up in the air, bothered and bewildered, headless chicken, raised blood pressure, panic… yes, all those things… all clichés, I know… but I felt them all.

The thing is, I was self-published before. Now, I have somebody guiding me and it’s all new. ‘It’s MY book,’ I wanted to scream. What are you doing to me?’

‘Be quiet, woman,’ I argued back. ‘Look how you’ve been helped with The Tuscan Secret Did you manage to sell over 21,000 copies in its original version?’

So, abandoning my scatterings of notes and pages, I went for a favourite walk. It usually helps. The climb up the mountain is steep; a narrow, stony mule track through woods.

The verges were studded with tiny cyclamens, like little promises. Lizards scuttled back under leaves as I approached. Four deer ran across the path above me and disappeared (much like the four chapters I had already culled). Was this a message?

My destination was the tiny village of Tramarecchia, the home of my main character, Massimo. It’s one of the many uninhabited hamlets dotted around this corner of Tuscany. There are signs that the owners still visit from time to time: a pruned fig tree, the chains for a child’s swing, rosemary and sage growing by a front door, half the grapes harvested from a vine. I sat by the washing troughs in the middle of the grassy square and asked my characters what I should do.

They weren’t really there, I know. They have stepped into my book. I had created them from imagination and borrowed stories. But they are very much in my head and I did talk to them. I began to calm down, sitting there in the quiet. Usually I pull out a notebook and jot down ideas. But I listened. If I had invented them in the first place, I could tweak what happened to them. Sitting there quietly helped me gain perspective.

I know my editor wants the book to do well. And I shall do my very best to be objective while I complete the next days’ edits. But that does not mean I shall change everything.

On the way home, I felt less coiled up inside. My shadow, as the afternoon sun lengthened the shadows, walked tall in front of me, leading the way back to my edits. I stepped over wolf prints in the mud, but the danger was past.

I would love to know how others cope with this process? Do let me know.