the bitter end of tired
Yesterday, as I wrestled with the several dozen remaining significant Daughter of Hounds editing problems, some of them annoyingly significant, and as I also wrestled with exhaustion, Spooky stepped in, interceded between me and me, and pointed out that it's very clear that I've lost all objectivity with this ms. That is, I cannot see the forest for the trees. That is, the big picture is lost to me for the moment. I have been so immersed in this novel for so long now, and I could not offer any convincing argument that she wasn't absolutely right. It's time to call it "finished" for the time being, provisionally "finished," time to step away and send it to my agent and my editor. I'll have another chance to polish things in a month or two when Liz (my editor) sends her editorial letter. Maybe by then there will be enough distance between me and the book that I can make decisions I don't change my mind about before the ink is even dry.
The conviction that this is my best book to date, and that it is also my most "accessible" book and the one most likely to gain me a wider readership, these things are playing a considerable factor in my dithering over the details. I feel, as I almost always have upon finishing a novel, that this is my last chance to get it all right. Though, I admit, it's never been half this bad, the dithering.
Nor has a novel ever left me this tired, which is truly saying something, as they always leave me wiped out and bleeding from my ears. So, today I'm e-mailing the ms. to Merrilee (my lit agent) in her office on West 21st Street that was, once upon a time ago, one of John Astor's bank vaults. And me, I'm going to attend to a last bit of business regarding Alabaster and then I'm going to rest. I'm going to rest until I no longer feel, as Bilbo said, "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." I'm only a writer, not a rock star or a business exec or even a lowly rocket scientist, and I'm not even a particularly successful writer at that. I do not believe that being a semi-successful author should bring one, regularly, this near the end of one's tether. So, yes, as much as possible, until it's time to begin work on Sirenia Digest #4, I'm going to rest. I'm going to read books and eat food that's good for me and stay hydrated and undertake as much of a detox as I can manage. That is what I mean to do. Also, I may be scarce on LJ for a week or so. With luck, there will be nothing much to write about.
My thanks to Amanda Downum for sending me tix to the Sisters of Mercy show, and to Sissy, for another package which has just arrived. And I should remind you that this is Day 6 of the letter S auction, and you cannot win if you do not bid.
Not much to say about yesterday. I worked on the ms. until about 7 p.m. After dinner, I lay on the sofa, flipping back and forth between the Olympics and a Miami Ink marathon. Then Spooky read to me from Brian Jacques' Redwall until I began to doze.
Postscript: The "final" word count on the typescript of Daughter of Hounds is 147,251 words, with a page count of 692.
The conviction that this is my best book to date, and that it is also my most "accessible" book and the one most likely to gain me a wider readership, these things are playing a considerable factor in my dithering over the details. I feel, as I almost always have upon finishing a novel, that this is my last chance to get it all right. Though, I admit, it's never been half this bad, the dithering.
Nor has a novel ever left me this tired, which is truly saying something, as they always leave me wiped out and bleeding from my ears. So, today I'm e-mailing the ms. to Merrilee (my lit agent) in her office on West 21st Street that was, once upon a time ago, one of John Astor's bank vaults. And me, I'm going to attend to a last bit of business regarding Alabaster and then I'm going to rest. I'm going to rest until I no longer feel, as Bilbo said, "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." I'm only a writer, not a rock star or a business exec or even a lowly rocket scientist, and I'm not even a particularly successful writer at that. I do not believe that being a semi-successful author should bring one, regularly, this near the end of one's tether. So, yes, as much as possible, until it's time to begin work on Sirenia Digest #4, I'm going to rest. I'm going to read books and eat food that's good for me and stay hydrated and undertake as much of a detox as I can manage. That is what I mean to do. Also, I may be scarce on LJ for a week or so. With luck, there will be nothing much to write about.
My thanks to Amanda Downum for sending me tix to the Sisters of Mercy show, and to Sissy, for another package which has just arrived. And I should remind you that this is Day 6 of the letter S auction, and you cannot win if you do not bid.
Not much to say about yesterday. I worked on the ms. until about 7 p.m. After dinner, I lay on the sofa, flipping back and forth between the Olympics and a Miami Ink marathon. Then Spooky read to me from Brian Jacques' Redwall until I began to doze.
Postscript: The "final" word count on the typescript of Daughter of Hounds is 147,251 words, with a page count of 692.