Picture this.

A room filled with sprawling handwritten pages, a printer on the brink of extinction, and an editor armed with nothing but a trusty red pen and a whole lot of patience.

The tale begins with me, Deirdre, the fearless editor faced with the daunting task of deciphering the ancient hieroglyphics (aka. the handwriting!). In the early days, those hand-written pages were sent by phone, sent by email, sent by carrier pigeon—okay, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. As the eyes adjusted, the brain adapted, and soon, deciphering handwriting became second nature as I hastily typed and edited. But as the pages piled up faster than a shooting star streaking across the night sky, we realised that change was necessary and we needed more growth.

Fear not, for I was not one to back down from a challenge. With ever so gentle probing of the technophobic author, to the wonders of One-Drive, touch-typing, and the magic of editing online, the comment box and track changes became our new battleground. Never underestimate the impact and power of a well-placed comment box 😊.

Ideas clashed, but creativity flourished from everyone.

As Chief Editor (or Chief Pain in the Ass, depending on whom you ask) and book designer, I revelled in the joy of bringing the author's words to life, suggesting rewrites and illustration tweaks, suggesting subtle changes while creatively re-modelling the manuscript to what is seen today.

So, there you have it, the editor's trials, and tribulations, filled with much laughter, tears, and more than a few close calls with a malfunctioning printer – God Bless its mechanical heart. 

Guiding "A Time for Lepralites" from scrawl to screen with wit, wisdom, and a whole lot of red ink.

Authentic.

Yes. I think so!

Chat soon again.