Childbirth and publishing

Cogitating on the similitude between childbirth and publishing.  Did a bit of a repeat performance on the childbirth bit with my adopted daughter just before Christmas, it was pretty much as I remembered it, lots of pushing, shoving and occasional swearing, finally rewarded by a miraculously wonderful, beautiful baby.
Writing seems to me to be a bit like that.  I mean, the initial idea is wonderful, you write the stories in a state of happy euphoria, the idea gestates and gets bigger and bigger (and consequently more expensive) until the day arrives and publication starts.
Right, first off don't listen to anyone who tells you that the easy peesy super duper practically automatic software will make a dawdle of the whole thing.  Oh no!  This is your shove 'n' push bit.  Page set up, check, page preview, convert to html, load into superbooky thing, convert, preview, and... some idiot (you) just cut all your illustrations in half :-(
Back to Word, wiggle, wiggle, hard page breaks, yes!  Bound to be okay now except... BUGGER!  (oops!)  Where did the 28 blank pages come from?  Squirm, push, moan...  Finally manages to get down to a mere 3 blank pages.  Press the 'publish' button because I am axhausted and 'can no more'...

Beautiful baby?  Not sure, nobody's cooing and going "chuckie, chuckie" - very few people have seen my thread on Facebook, even fewer are passing it on - this is a moment of extreme ANXST!  Okay, shoulders back, no problem, go lookie on Amazon site - lookie, lookie, NOTHING - ah yes, wee message saying no figures until its been 2 months ... arghhhhhhh!!!!!

Never mind, perhaps someone's written a review?  Scurry back to Amazon... NOPE - heart like lead, my baby is a reject, something went wrong in gestation, why oh why?  Phone rings, illustrator, are we on for volume 2?  'Course we are!  Just give me time to sketch out a rough translation and its chocks away! 
Forgot to mention its an excellent way of losing weight ;-)

Reginald and sundry stuff

It all started with a support group discussion among foster parents here in France, and the problems encountered with kids who wouldn't eat vegetables that came from 'dirty earth' or eggs that came from 'chickens' bottoms'. Put that together with the fact that for years I have read stories to my foster children at night with the option 'French or English?' which they thoroughly enjoy, and voilà - out came the idea of Reginald! This first story introduces our naive little vegetarian vampire, and shows how he benefits from his 'veggies' and convinces other vampires to eat 5 fruits or vegetables per day. In future stories Reginald will have to come to terms with basic gardening practises, earthworms, wiggly insects, greenhouses and much, much more. The idea is to marry humour with instruction and in some way compensate for those wonderful grandfathers who knew all about these things and shared them with our lucky post-war generation.When I was finally lucky enough to own my own little plot of paradise here in France, I often heard echoes of my grandpa "Planting a bush?  Puddle it in well..." and I'm hoping that Reginald might leave a few similar memories embedded in small heads - whilst they laugh at his antics with wiggly things and poo, etc.  Whatever else they're great fun to write, and Eric is a brilliant illustrator, while Denhel picks over my woeful written French and turns it into a thing of beauty :-)  Luckily I have a resident panel of judges who subject me to unpitying criticism, so I know what kids expect to happen next, even if it wasn't quite what I had in mind!