Compastion: n. The uncomfortable feeling you from reading a thank-you-everyone-for-all-the-kind-comments-and-emails-during-this-difficult-time post when you know you could have offered a comforting word but didn’t.
Right here
StandardRight here in the room with me is a woman in a sparkling satin dress, with a crumpled sash over her right shoulder and a tiara in her well-sprayed hair. Her face is streaked with tears, and she can’t stop saying Thank you! Thank you!. She has to steady herself by clutching the hand of the friend next to her.
That woman is me.
I just sent Man Bites World to my editor at Del Rey. And it’s only seven months and two days past deadline! Why, that’s practically early!
Okay. Not really. In fact, this book was really difficult to write. Add that the revisions for Game of Cages were extensive and time-consuming and you have me missing my target like a blindfolded man in a gun fight.
But it’s turned in and I’m ready for revisions. How do I feel?
So.
Frigging.
Relieved.
To finish the post, here’s a list of the words that MS Word for Mac did not recognize during that final spell check: hitman, baster, motherfuckers, meh, berm, lynchings.
Now I get to work on the next thing.
Fun with words
StandardHow do you guys feel about “spasm” as a verb?
Signal Boost
Standard
Support rape crisis centers and enter to win an Advance Copy of Red Hood’s Revenge, by Jim C. Hines.
Randomness for 4/2
Standard1) Quentin Tarantino is playing a smurf? Um, okay, I gues.
2) Protecting IP the stand-up comic way. One of my friends was (unfairly) accused of joke-stealing. It was painful to see him (voluntarily) ditch a ten-minute routine about sitting at the big table over Thanksgiving because someone else had a single joke about it. This probably deserves its own post, but I’m not the one to write it.
3) I liked Speed Racer, too. However, I don’t have to call it an “art film” to justify that. It was definitely inventive and non-realistic, and it had a powerful emotional affect on me. I’ve been meaning to rewatch the ending to examine that a little more.
4) Insectophobes, do not click! That sucker is two and a half feet long. If you drown in deep waters and your corpse sinks to the bottom, that thing will be one of the creatures feasting on you.
5) Batman goes to jail for stalking L&O actress. Fate of his two daughters, Harleyquinn and Batgirl, undecided. (More seriously, if you’re a famous person, you get stalkers–freaky, creepy ones–and the only way they hit the news is if they’re colorful in some way or it’s a slow news day.)
6) Beautiful new library in Battery Park.
7) Big house vs short commute time: Which will make us happier? It’s interesting how this just assumes people will be in cars. I wonder what variables public transit adds in? Personally, I like my bus time; it’s pretty much the only dedicated reading time I have left.
April Rules
StandardFYI: As a general rule, April Fools Day pranks suck. The truth is, too many people are nasty when they think they’re being funny. So this isn’t a “holiday” I like much.
If I can find good examples of AFD jokes, I’ll post them tomorrow. But there really ought to be a set of guidelines for people to follow when thinking up pranks.
Randomness for 3/31
Standard1) Non-Adventures of Wonderella is awesome.
2) This one is NSFW: Forehead Tittaes. via SmartBitches
3) A horror film that calls YOU!
4) Somehow I think this is not an official traffic law.
5) This made me laugh myself sick. via barbarienne
6) “He thought if he could save one chubby girl, he’s done his job,” Lutz said. Pft. That’s what every guy going crazy with a hunting knife thinks.
7) You know what? This shouldn’t have been a TV show in the first place, let alone a damn movie. Did you know that box office poison smells like almonds? It’s true.
Yesterday was supposed to be a day off.
StandardI was supposed to take all of your advice and spend the day hanging out with my son, playing the new used Wii games I bought (verdict: De Blob=awesome. The Incredible Hulk=WTF were they thinking?) and general relaxing fun.
Instead I received my second round of notes from my agent on Man Bites World and spent about an hour and 15 reviewing the galleys for the last corrections to Game of Cages.
As I mentioned in my picture post yesterday, All the notes (there are only eight) are tweaks to bring out the stakes, fix pacing, or establish context. No prob. The plot and characters are solid (afaict). There’s still one important scene that isn’t quite pulling its weight, but it’s meant to be an oddball. If I can finesse it, I will. Otherwise I’ll just do what my agent suggests and shorten it.
And the Game of Cages galleys just needed straightforward correcting. After the copyedits are entered, a pair of proofreaders will read it, and I’ll have additional fixes to go over. I should have taken some notes about some of the errors they caught; I could have done another self-Thogging post. (For instance, trucks do not “skid on their brakes” omg no, not unless the brakes drop out of the bottom of the vehicle and get wedged beneath the tires.)
Anyway, my agent takes a little vacay starting tomorrow. I have a week to finish the revisions and prep the pages for Key/Egg/Remark. I suspect K/E/R has stalled out because I went off the rails. I’ll need to come up with a way to skim over the unpleasant scenes I’ve been trying to write to get to the fun stuff.
In unrelated news, my wife brought home her CPAP machine last night. I fully expect her to say it was too uncomfortable to sleep in, but I hold out hope that she had a good night.
Off to start the day.
Dammit
StandardI’ve lost my focus.
I’ve lost my discipline, drive and willpower. And I don’t know how to get it back.