Fritz called me at work to complain that he was missing 30 pages from his manuscript. I told him I would stop by tonight and look at the manuscript. Felt in a generally growly mood by the time I picked Tim up, but I still took him to Comic Relief when he asked. Got a nice stack of comics, but I didn’t have much time to read them. I just dropped Tim off and went straight to Fritz’s place.

His phone line was busy, so I wasn’t able to get through the door buzzer, but an Asian lady let me in. (She said she liked my hair.) When I got to Fritz’s and he showed me the manuscript it turned out that, at most, the manuscript was six pages short of the first draft – and that could be accounted for by changes and formatting command differences. He is, I think, very uncertain and unhappy about being unable to read hiw own writing. I have to get down there this week and do some reading to him. That might make him more confident.

A courtly old man with a moustache and a baseball cap escorted me out, asking permission before opening doors for me. “Fritz is a good guy,” he told me.

“He’s a good writer, too.”

“I know that,” he replied, as though it went without saying.

Tomorrow I’m going to call Fritz from work to reassure him about what goes where in which chapters.