On Monday morning I was in a blind panic. The deadline for posted manuscript entries to the Daily Mail First Novel competition is 1730 GMT on Saturday 16 April. But I was in France again. A letter sent from France to Blighty takes between three days and a week. Therefore I had to get my entry — 5,000 words in 12 point Times New Roman, double-spaced, and a 600-word synopsis of the rest — posted by midday at the absolute latest.

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