Good news re my manuscript.

Some of you will know i have been working on a manuscript, about the dreadful treatment and death of my husband Don...my reasons are about justice and so that things might change...especially attitudes to disabled people...which are in the dark ages in our hospital system.

I finished the first write last September and had no idea of the task I had set for myself. It has had many rewrites by me, and apart from one bad so called editor, I have been fortunate to have three people edit the manuscript, each adding to it and showing me better ways to write. Nicki Taylor, Charlie's wife was the second of these and she did a wonderful job.

The hardest thing is to find a publisher, being an unknown...hard enough if its a story, but non fiction and on such a subject which in my case amounts to an expose of bad research, brutalisation, denial of human rights, mistakes, neglect and what I feel was an unlawful death, well publishers are not all that willing to read it and seem to be overwhelmed with stories and other.

I was walking down the path yesterday afternoon talking aloud to myself...you can get away with that if you life out of town...I'll just have to remember not to do it in town... (mad old woman stuff)... I just said out loud, where on earth am i going to find a bloody publisher who will be willing to read the whole thing?

I was feeling desperate...self publishing on such a subject is really risky due to the willingness of doctors to sue...them being more litigious than ordinary people.

Half an hour later I had a phone call from a long time friend of mine in Newcastle (NSW). She has a friend who worked as a Fleet Street Journalist, and who has a disabled son. She was telling her about my manuscript, which she (my friend) had just finished reading and how it had to be published, and how powerful it was.

This journalist writes for a major Australian paper now, freelance and has had many articles published around medical care and disabled etc.

My friend put me in touch with the journalist and she asked me to sent the whole manuscript to her as she wanted to read it. I was up till the wee small hours tiding it up, adding photos, a timeline, a synopsis etc.

Its on its way to her and I can only hope. I know that were someone to read it as it is now, not as it was months ago, filled with anger and "may they rot in hell...a curse on all their houses" stuff it will be realised that the manuscript is a tool for change as well as an expose.

My last editor showed me how to change things i had in there which i thought were okay...and she got me to not tell what happened so much as "show" but description of events what happened. This has made it so much better.

So, here is hoping. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Its just so odd how it all came about...