Finally after almost a month at home I am beginning to feel like I’ve returned to the real world. I no longer wake up anticipating my stroll to the boulangerie and my quotidien perusal of le journal at Chez Felix. I’ve reacquainted myself with the morning chorus from the kookaburras and the pleasures of toast and Vegemite.

Living in Narooma is a delight, even in the depths of winter. It’s not hard to be here when I can toddle five minutes down the road for a lunchtime promenade on a stunning, sun-drenched, pristine beach.

I’m finding great satisfaction in the small things, like the orchids in the garden that always bloom for my birthday.

And in the company and conversation of my dear friends, who continue to enthuse about my writing and encourage me to press on with the next phase.

I’m coming to realise that such encouragement and enthusiasm will be sorely needed if I’m to maintain momentum in the face of the daily grind. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but it’s much harder to leap joyfully upon my manuscript for a spot of pruning and polishing after a day at the employment coalface than it was sitting before my magical view in Carcassonne.

Now that the thrill of authorial inspiration has faded, I’m finding the hiatus between creativity and publication sadly deflating. There’s so much I can’t control about this process. It doesn’t matter how firmly I set my resolve or how disciplined I am about taking the next steps.

I’ve come to the bit where I’m in the hands of others – my beta readers, my hoped for agent. It now becomes about what outsiders think of my work and, like most writers, that scares the pants of me.

Maybe I’m completely delusional and all I have produced is drivel. Perhaps my perception of my literary baby as funny and engaging is the partisan fondness of a doting mother. Perchance my dreams of publishing glory are nothing more than a fantasy and all I’ve done is had a nice holiday where I’ve amused myself with my scribbling.

Not that that’s a bad thing. Before I departed for France I told myself that even if my book never saw the light of day I’d still have created a raft of unforgettable memories of my summer in the south of France, and indeed I’m fully satisfied and deeply grateful for that special experience.

But I persist in daydreaming about stacks of my novel perched enticingly for sale in airport bookshops, and the thrill I will have when I’m sitting on that panel at a writers’ festival whipping out my inscribed copy of The Burning Chambers before a bemused Kate Mosse.

Incurable optimist? Yes. Pragmatic realist? Also yes. I know I need to bare my soul and place my baby before impartial eyes, so I’ve taken the plunge and booked a manuscript assessment with Writing NSW in October. Someone with experience of the publishing industry – someone who really knows – is going scrutinise my work and tell me straight up whether I’m even in the ball park of possibility.

‘Till then I’ll peg away at my editing, maintaining the momentum towards that persistent dream.