progress

Ha ha! Startling!

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I have a copy edit due on Tuesday, 10/13. It has to be there, inside the publisher’s offices, on that day. Express overnight mail, people!

Monday, 10/12, is a federal holiday, and all the post offices will be closed!

Luckily, I should be able to put it in the mail tomorrow.

ETA: (because I didn’t want to put this into a new post) My Amazon.com sales ranking for Child of Fire seem to be following a steady routine, at this point. Early in the day, about 8 am PST, the rank is around 14K. Later in the day, (say, about now) it’s up to 28K.

I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I wonder what it means. (I know: Nothing.)

Dammit

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I was so close to finishing my copy edit this morning. This evening, maybe. I also have to work up the dedication and acknowledgements.

Still. So close. Ah, well. I expect I’ll make a couple last decisions after work today and put it in the mail tomorrow, well before deadline.

Also, there’s nothing like a rigorous copy edit to make you question the strength of your relationship with your mother tongue. Apparently, I need to work a bit on the difference between “each other” and “one another”.

Remember last June?

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I hope you do.

Anyway, I wrote a post about a book called Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, which was not only about the way real fights differ from what we expect, but is also about how we deceive ourselves about what we can do and what we can’t. My original post is here: blog / LiveJournal.

Well, last night I had another “Meditations” moment: For quite a while now, I’ve been a morning writer. Physically, I’m a night person, but I could never get anything accomplished at the end of the day–too tired, too distractible, too many other things to do. For years, I’d come home from work and get nothing done on my projects. Once I started waking early and writing before work, I was much more productive.

But why, exactly, was that? Did I say tired and distractible? That’s just me defining myself as a person who can’t do some perfectly reasonable thing, and last night I walked out of my day job after a full day’s work and my usual morning writing session to head to the library.

There, I put in another two and a half hours on the copy edit. I expect to finish the whole thing today.

Can’t write/revise/whatever at the end of the day? Why do I tell myself these things? And how long is it going to take for me to break that habit?

Phew! Also: OMG!

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I could not finish Man Bites World this morning before the signing. The end was just too far away.

After the signing, the socializing, and the lunch with an online friend and her family, my family returned home to the site of the copyedit of Game of Cages. It’s due back at the Random House offices on October 13th, which is a Tuesday. And if it’s going to arrive on time by express mail or whatever, I’m going to have to send it on Saturday.

That means I have one week. Did I mention that I’m a slow reader? That I’m trying to teach myself speed reading?

My poor wife is sick of her absent husband, not least of all because shortly after I deliver the copyedit, she’s going to be flying back east to spend some time with her parents. There’s talk of home upgrades for them. Who knows? I’ll be staying here.

However! I did not want to jump into the copyedit with MBW so close to finished. So that’s what I did.

Yep, Man Bites World is now complete in rough(est) draft version. A bunch of story beats need to be spackled over, there’s one section where Ray is too passive for the story to work, and one location that–surprise, surprise–turned out to be the scene of the climactic conflict. I have to go back and change the earlier scene to match them up.

And there are a lot of small changes to make. Plus, I should iron out the text. I’m not exactly Mr. Gorgeous First Draft (although blogging helps). Still, I solved that story.

So, a full copyedit in only one week is a challenge for me, but I’m going to do my best. But not tonight. Tonight I’m going to have another beer out of the celebratory six-pack of Dead Guy Ale my wife bought us, and I’m going to spend some quality time with the Internet.

Game of Cages, Man Bites World, Child of Fire

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Today’s a triple book day–the copyedit for Game of Cages arrived late last night (so late that I didn’t find it until this morning), I’m hoping to write the last two scenes of Man Bites World today and then there’s the signing for Child of Fire later this morning.

Busy day. You know what worries me most? My wife and son haven’t been sleeping all that well. Will they have the reserves for two hours at the store and socializing after? dum dum DUMMM!

After that, I’m concerned about having the copyedit back to Del Rey in only ten days. Have I mentioned that I’m a poky reader? I do believe I have.

Btw, for folks reading this on LiveJournal, I’m still at skip=90 or something, and it’s been hard to find the time to catch up. Sorry.

To work.

Yes, I am that sort of person

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It’s the fourth day that Child of Fire has been on sale. Yes, I am still visiting Amazon.com twenty times a day. Yes, I’m still checking for new reviews. Yes, I’m still glancing at the “sales rank.”

No, you don’t need to tell me that Amazon.com’s sales rank numbers are pretty much meaningless. Really, don’t. I already know that. But it’s one of only two ways I have of judging public interest in my book (all copies at my library are checked out or on hold) so I keep looking at it.

Before the release, the sales rank was in the low six-figures. On release day and after, it hung around 3K. At this point, it’s ping-ponging between 10K and 15K. I don’t care that it isn’t a good judge of how the book is selling. It’s the only input I can look at.

Am I the sort of person who makes an excuse to wander into Borders to see if there are fewer books on the shelf? (Apparently.) Am I the sort of person to linger by the shelf because a guy is standing right next to my book with a paperback in hand? (Yes.) Did I see a complete stranger carry my book to the register? (No. Congrats on the sale, Seanan McGuire!) Am I the sort of person who buys other books to hide the fact that I’m basically skulking around the store? (Oh, hell yes. And Mastercard is damn grateful). Were there, in fact, fewer books on the shelf? (Yes!)

Anyway, it’s weird. As Betsy, my editor, mentioned in the chat I linked to earlier in the week, Del Rey acquired my book with a pre-empt–before financial deregulation sent the economy into a nosedive. There are expectations for this book, and it has come out at a time of nearly 10% unemployment.

Which… okay. Perspective: millions of out-of-work people around the world is a bigger problem than the possiblilty that my book will underperform, but I can’t help but link them.

I keep wanting input but it’s slowly fading. I’m going to have to shrug it off soon and put it behind me. Soon. Don’t I know that it’s pretty much out of my hands now? (Yeah, in fact, I do.)

In other news, I hope to finish the rough draft of book three tomorrow morning before the signing. We’ll see.

Randomness

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I’m going to compile a bunch of random things into this post and publish them all at once.

1) via geniusofevil: Heat Wave: Richard Castle is a real writer!

2) I’ve been going back and forth on some common euphamisms. Yesterday, in a comment, I used the term “godsend.” Is that a word an atheist should use? I think not, obviously, since it bothers me. In the few stolen moments I had to type out the comment, I couldn’t come up with an alternative that said the same thing.

Except there’s “ghu” or “ghod” but I think of that as an SF fandom thing, and I’m not part of that community, either. Sometimes I write “Thank Pikachu” or whatever as a joke, even though at this point I’m the only member of my household who thinks Pikachu is cool.

I don’t really have a point. This is just something I’m thinking about.

3) Nicholas Kristof on the myth that government can’t do health care. And yeah, I spent way too much time yesterday arguing health care on John Scalzi’s blog.

3a) Arguing about health care on the web makes me hate the universe!

4) PW’s newly focused blog, Genreville (verdict: interesting so far) offers Lev Grossman the opportunity to knock over some straw men. He accepts.

5) Inglourious Wizerds

6) Man builds house out of Legos.

7) Work on Man Bites World continues slowly, but this is a really difficult section. Very different from what I’ve been doing before, and I’m going to have to revise it significantly once I straighten out in my mind how the protagonist would react to extremely strange events.

Not that you asked

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But Man Bites World has been difficult lately. I have a great deal of work left to do with it before I send it to my agent, but that’s not going to happen unless I can start making my daily goals.

Actually, I’ve been hoping to double them. Ha!

I’m sure things will go better once I establish a groove.

ARGH!

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I’m at a very difficult, very painful part of the book, and I have to stop right now or I’m not going to get home in time to relieve my wife of parenting duties. I can’t make her late for work because I wanted to reach the end of a scene.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

In other news, I’m really amazingly happy with the way Man Bites World is wrapping up (which means my agent and editor will probably be horrified).

I’m writing

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I’m at the Starbucks, writing. The guy across the table working on his laptop is humming to the music, and doing it in a way that makes me think it’s not conscious at all.

Argh. Must focus.