Mama Writer Update

Oct 13, 2009 10:55

For the record, we're at nine weeks and two days... and I've been writing away pretty well over the last week, managing my 500 word daily minimum. Which is good, because the stakes have been raised for Mama Writer. My edits arrived from HarperCollins yesterday for Power and Majesty - and oh my, that is a big book, isn't it?

It's kind of lovely to be back to doing things the way they do in a big publishing house - editing directly on to a paper manuscript! So old school, and yet satisfying.

godiyeva and I had arranged to devote yesterday as pre-nano practice - and we weren't letting anything get in our way, even the fact that my entire family had called in sick. I callously left migraine-honey in charge of cold-girl and ran away with the baby and my laptop.

We went to cafe-write first - Citrus Moon was closed so we went to my favourite juice bar and managed to write for an hour, fuelled by fruit smoothies (mmm pineapple mint). Jemima managed about ten minutes in the pram before getting cranky, so I put her in the Safari baby pouch and joggled her to sleep while typing. Oh, that's what the wrist-rest is really for on my laptop - enables me to have a baby between me and it and still see the keyboard!

I managed nearly 9000 words at the laptop, then we went back to godiyeva's place for salad sandwiches and more work. My total for the day was 1500 words plus - not quite a full nano but pretty damn swanky for a post-baby writing day. We even had time to open my exciting parcel and go 'ooooh' about the edit letters.

The excitement kept building. So much work to do, but the very best kind of work - the first real edit is a brilliant process when you have an editor who really gets you, and wants to bring out the best of the book. Also, they want MAPS. I used to be one of those readers who was snobbish about books-what-have-maps-in but omg, maps! No one travels anywhere in my book, but the city is a hugely important feature of the story and the thought of someone translating my biro scribbles into a pretty-making Real Map... squeeee!

Also, the glossary I put together to help me and any editors keep all the many worldbuilding details straight is going to be stripped of spoilers and added to the book! And I may get to put my calendar in there too - hooray!

I need to construct a massive to-do list. Apart from the edits themselves, there is the glossary edit to do, and I have to organise author photos, and get my notes/diagrams together for mapmaking and, and, and --- why yes, this will be a full time job over the next month or so. *bounces madly*

My favourite part was looking at the projected timeline - it's looking like it will be a June rather than July release - and godiyeva going through it patiently, deciding the points at which we will have champagne to celebrate (there are a lot of those) and when we will have high tea... culminating of course in our grand bookshopcrawlfollowedbyhightea tradition which we started last time I had a book out. We may let others play next time. The rules are you go from shop to shop, spotting as many copies of your book as possible, then collapse in a tearoom and embrace the smug. Then keep eating scones until the smug goes away and you can once more function as a normal person in society. Sometimes this takes a lot of scones...

Also talking to her, I realised that while I have been rattling away about Siren Beat to my internet peeps forever, I have not actually done much to let my real people know that I have a New Book Out Right Now. As she put it "Tansy, you have not provided adequate foreshadowing for this!" Possibly I need to get right on that.

Speaking of writering, I had the amazing realisation today that I only have three scenes to write and then the draft of Cabaret of Monsters (book 2) is DONE. That puts me way ahead of schedule. And sure, the draft is about 20K short of where the final book needs to be, but that's what December is for. And January.

I can't tell you how hard it is not to just take the phone off the hook and write those scenes RIGHT NOW, but I have so many things that really have to be done today, that should have been done yesterday in fact, and, and, and ---

The funny thing is, godiyeva already promised me champagne on Thursday to celebrate edit letter. If I finish the book before then as well, do I get cake?

Mmm, cake.

editing, power and majesty, nanowrimo, writing, cabaret of monsters, mama writer

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