Thanks EE!

The EVIL EDITOR critiqued the first draft of our query letter yesterday. I'm happy that he did not seem generally appauled by it -- nor did the minions who are known to sometimes have passionate feelings (often of distate) for the letter/premise. The fact that most of the comments were spent talking about an obscure weed that grows in the Southern States I take as a good sign! That you EE -- some suggestions are going to be taken, others pretty well disregarded. As usual, the critique was quite amusing, made even more so because it was ours.

Today's editing went well even though it felt more like work than it has in the past couple weeks. When we began our weekly editing, we felt hugely accomplished to get 10 pages done a day. Today we did 17. I'm thinking this is a combination of the writing getting better, us getting faster at editing, and more leniancy on both our parts. We're really less likely to quibble about things like commas, and if we're opposing on something, usually either one gives in fast or we just cut it altogether. Compromise is our friend.

In other news, Jim Baen passed away yesterday. I am not exactly a science fiction fan, though it is an area I am actively interested in learning more about. The tropes are interesting, and there is much within the SF genre that parallels the nifty societal insights that can be made in fantasy. And I certainly respect and admire what Jim Baen was able to do to the industry of sci-fi publishing -- he did more for it than many others have. He was the founding force for some of the biggest names in SF, main editor of one of the biggest publishing houses in SF Baen books, established the SF lines of both Ace fiction and Tor, and worked for a couple of magazines. Fantasy and sci-fi have a tendency to be grouped together, and surely some of the good he's done SF is good done also to its sister-genre. There is a very touching piece written about Jim Baen here by David Drake -- even most non SF readers have surely heard of Drake.

In the name of Procrastination

In the name of procrastination (yesterday) I managed to produce one and a half pages of work, or just over that. They were good pages and leave me at a desirable place, I did it to lessen my guilt for not haveing written in so long and to further my procratination attempts. That is in fact what this post is for. Aren't I good at this?

Anyhow, that's what's up, and I now have a chunck of editing from beth to speed through, of course it'll be a miricle if I manage... maybe if I'm not doing anything tomorrow... we'll see.

Woot There It Is!

A reasonable relaxed editing session managed to spring us forward into the DONE zone for book one part one's editing - which again, is done. Thank god. Now we move onto book one part two's editing and let me say, here's hoping it's smoother going. It'll be more familiar that's for certain as it seems we will be doing both the steps at relatively the same time. I'll be finishing up and then passing off what ever it is that I finish to the Thursday session. Again, here's hoping we're good to go.

A 'suprise down' in 'reward' for finishing our first half, was a half check from my co-hort's mother. "This is what half a book is worth" she said to us. It's for tw- dollars, what that tw- turns out to be is beyond us, but we are of the understanding that it is for shipping, copying etc fees. Again, here's hoping.

We are so close to shopping our book around that I can taste it! I just hope that all this time and effort is ultimately worth it, I believe in it and so does Beth, but let's face it people, it's still a scarey bussiness this publishing thing!

Just thought I'd pass on the good news, now I go forth to recover from late nate talking and such to other persuites of the mind (and possibly a nap).

OnARollAgain/Momentum

Today I grasped the momentum that was so quickly slipping from my fingers. I grasped and I wrote, I wrote just the right amount to keep me coming back for more either today or tomorrow, just the right amount... I hope. (4 pages)

The issue of the day is, how do I accomplish all that needs accomplishing without going too quickly? Honestly speeking I'm afraid of going to fast for the novel. When we split it into threes I sat there going "This is a splendid idea" but I knew that there would be set backs, such as the one I am facing right now. My issue with book two is making it a real book and not just a "part of" type of thing. I love the plots, I love where it's going, but I'm so afraid of cutting it off at an awkward point, or hurrying things up and making it too short. Perhaps I am fretting for no reason, view book 1: it is too long, though we are still editing. Perhaps book two will be too long, and will have to be edited down, but really I am still nervous. Are we too speedy? Is this plot moving too fast or have we simply managed "tension on every page" as Mr Rand, Malfy, and McDonald stressed was a necessity to the book? I await the answer to this and simply hope that my baby isn't being rushed, nor slowed down too far.

I'm sure to work through my issues, but until I do I am sure to be a tentative stepper.