When I’m feeling a little down, I thank the undirected, uncaring universe that I’m not this lady.
If you’re going to call a reviewer a “snake” for pointing out spelling and grammar errors, you really ought to proofread those comments carefully. I certainly make my share of errors, but in this situation? Extra care is required.
Also: lol.
Sometimes being a writer is easy and fun. You know what comes next in the story and you’re excited to get it all down, all the nuance and confusion, all the sudden unexpected turns of plot that seem just right.
I don’t have a lot of those days, myself. I suspect I struggle more than most writers; I’m certainly slower. I don’t talk about it online as much as I used to but yesterday, as I was doing some revisions, I realized a major complex scene was completely wrong and ridiculous. It turns out I’d established a much easier solution to the Problem At Hand early in the book, and why were they going to so much trouble when they already knew the easiest possible solution?
Discovering this sort of plot hole so late in the process fills me with despair.
A week or so ago a bunch of Tor authors, including Beth Bernobich, were doing a chat on Twitter, and I offered up a question that I thought the readers might be interested in: paraphrasing myself because of poor memory, I asked: “What’s the most surprising thing that’s different now that you’re a published author?”
All three writers gave pretty much the same answer (“There’s an awful lot of additional work involved!”) but for me it would be different. For me, the surprising change is that, as far as the writing goes, nothing is any better.
In non-writing aspects of my life, things are absolutely better. It’s great to have readers, and incredibly smart pros offering me revision notes, and to see my books in stores, and the money, too. All of that is better.
But in terms of sitting down at my computer and putting words on the page, there’s no extra confidence, no sense of validation, no ease or comfort. If anything, the struggle has extra headaches added to it: deadlines, personal and professional expectations, so on and so on.
So this morning, instead of getting out of bed, I laid there under the covers for an extra hour, thinking about the characters, what resources they had, what they needed and what they would never, ever do. I think I have the scene ready, and it’ll be better (not so “Hollywood” if you know what I mean) and shorter, too. What’s more, it’s a less tragic ending than I’ve been writing, which makes a nice change.
I’ll write it out later today or tomorrow. I’m nearly done with this thing (which for me means… what? two more weeks of work?) and then I can go back to something more fun. And hopefully I won’t have to freak out on Twitter again.
“You can write it off as “political correctness” if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They’re so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don’t see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what’s everyone’s fuss all about? That’s the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.”
— David Galder, Bioware employee (I don’t know his job title) (eta: he’s the lead writer for Dragon Age 2)
Not unexpected, but sad nonetheless. Her work will last a long, long time.
1) How great entrepreneurs think.
2) A flowchart guide to the Affordable Care Act.
3) Ten supposedly sexy super-heroine costumes that really aren’t.
4) Every new social media offering, now online. (This is pretty funny, and it even includes a certain cat)
5) Author Ryk Spoor responds to my hypothetical vampire child question of a few days ago.
6) I know there are a lot of people who don’t like Rachel Ray, but I think everyone will accept that she deserves a comma or two here.
7) J.K. Rowling’s next project, courtesy of collegehumor.com
But I have to say I got a helluva lot of work done today. Sorry for ignoring you, internet! (Especially you, Twitter ::tickles Twitter under chin::) Don’t expect to see much of me tomorrow, either.
I’m setting Mac Freedom for the full eight hours and heading out to work. That means I won’t be around until at least 2 PST and probably later. Don’t hate me if I don’t respond to your emails right away.
I have GOT to finish up these revisions, and while I won’t reach the end today, I hope to reach them very very soon.
I suspect the reason is, “I’m an idiot.”
Anyway, Japan is getting a lot of attention for the recent natural disaster (and the problems it caused) but just before that happened there was a powerful earthquake in New Zealand, too. The folks in Christchurch need help, and author Karen Healey is doing something about it.
Yep, that’s a charity anthology, and the table of contents is pretty impressive. Check it out and, if you can, help those folks out by buying a copy.
Your only child (if you don’t have one, just imagine–if you have several, imagine there’s just one) is five years old, and she has been attacked by a vampire, and turned.
No one else knows about this. She sleeps during the day and can not survive in the sun. Also, crosses or religious symbols do not harm her or ward her off. She has a terrible allergic reaction to garlic. She must have blood every day, but she requires so little that you don’t have to kill anyone. It’s a bother to procure the blood, but not impossible.
However, she’ll remain five for all eternity… or until she’s staked. You must keep her condition a secret (lest she be killed) but you also know that you can’t care for her forever (because you’ll grow old and die), and she will never be able to care for herself. She can’t learn new things, can’t talk like a grownup, can’t become a criminal mastermind the way little girl vampires do on TV. She’ll be five always.
The question: Do you (and/or your spouse, if you have one) turn yourselves into vampires, too, so she will always have someone to care for her?
If you want a brief description of the issues facing the Japanese people with regard to their nuclear reactors, check this out.
We’ve been watching his other videos for a while now. It’s interesting stuff.