1 June
Yes, I’ve begun the third draft of PEGASUS. Yes, I’m . . . hmm. . . . A trifle preoccupied about the passage of time. I mean, the end of May shouldn’t have happened already. It can’t possibly be June.* And I’m sure I’ll be saying something similar about the end of August.
Oh yes, and the first 800 words have changed, although not very much (well, so far. I could always go back later). But one of the reasons I stopped where I did last night is because I realised the next paragraph was about to go bulging off in a new direction.
But speaking of my compositional nontechnique** and disturbing cluelessness, Judith posted to the forum a little while ago:
| Quote: |
| I was wrong about how HERO ended. |
Now THAT is a seriously teasing comment. I don’t suppose you’re willing to tell us anything more about that?
Er . . . why is it teasing? I admit to. . . succumbing occasionally to the spirit of mockery, but that I thought HERO ended somewhere else is just true, like it’s true that half my novels began as short stories, and that Narknon in SWORD wandered in from wherever characters hang out while they’re waiting for their story to be written, after I had begun the third (and final) draft.
I’m pretty sure I tell both these tales of haplessness somewhere in the FAQ but about a third of the FAQ is still waiting for me to reread, and rewrite it as necessary*** before it is rehung, and I can never remember where I tell which story anyway. So:
SPOILER ALERT
If you haven’t read THE HERO AND THE CROWN, avert your eyes NOW
. . . Tra la, tra la, tra la la la la la, tra la, tra la la la la, tra, etc†
HERO was supposed to end, I thought as I started the first draft, with the battle in front of the city, when Aerin brings the Crown home and gives it to Tor. I knew there would be a little tidy-up but I thought the important stuff came to an end with the battle. I didn’t know anything about the whole terrifying, crucial business with Maur’s head–nor did I know how the land below the city had gone from being ancient forest in Aerin’s day to desert in Harry’s. I’d got through the battle, and Arlbeth†† . . . .and then all this other stuff happened. The way I tell the story is that I sat there watching my hand scrambling across the page–this was in the days when my first drafts were handwritten on yellow legal pads–as if it belonged to someone else, reading what it was writing††† and saying, oh! That’s interesting! Oh! That’s interesting! –Speaking, as I recently was, of automatic writing.
| Quote: |
| That said, other mortals can be very useful in pointing out your mortal mistakes, the places where you’ve failed to hear what the story was telling you, or flubbed the translation process. But for me that needs to be at the end. Any earlier and it just gets in my way. |
Have you ever had to deal with an editor requiring major changes in the storyline? How have you dealt with it?
No. Fortunately. Because I probably couldn’t. I do not rewrite well. Never have. I expand, gods know, do I ever expand. And I do a lot of cleaning and polishing. But generally speaking the bones of the story have to go down right the first time or I’m frelled.‡ The worst I was ever obliged to do was to take out some pages at the beginning of BEAUTY on the reasonable grounds that the reader wants to get to the castle and the Beast sooner. My editors always have suggestions–that’s what editors are for‡‡–and I’ve never turned in a book yet that an editor didn’t say something illuminating that makes me smack my forehead and say, geez, and you call yourself a writer? But major changes? Nope.
KIRITH was simply turned down; that editor didn’t make suggestions. I don’t think suggestions would have done me any good anyway: see above. However regular blog readers may remember some fairly lurid frelling when I posted–I think it was the second–snippet of KIRITH and found myself rewriting it. This–rewriting–means the story is still live. So I may have a try at it again. It does have a few scenes I’d be sorry to lose forever. Depends on how fast I get through some of the other things in the queue.
Like PEGASUS. So I’d better go to bed so I can get back to it as early as possible.‡‡‡
* * *
* Never mind all those roses in the garden. That’s global warming.^
^ I realise this is politically incorrect and I don’t really mean it, but . . . if global warming cured February . . . maybe polar bears could learn to shed out? . . .okay, the twenty-foot sea-walls around low-lying coastal cities might be problematic . . . but building and maintaining them would create jobs! Think of the economic benefit!
** I don’t think ‘bulge’ is a verb much used in grammar and how-to-structure-your-writing classes. I could be wrong. I haven’t been in one in a long time.
*** Some things don’t change. As I keep telling people who suggest that the blog in its present avatar is perhaps not the best use of my energy, the reason the blog gets done at all is because I do it every day. I can’t remember how long I’ve had a web site, but however long it is, I’ve spent that long ignoring my webmistress’ pleas to pay it more and more regular attention. I may yet come up for a brain transplant, of course, and as a result start reading the 1,000,000 periodicals I subscribe to instead of letting them form slithery mountain ranges^ all over the kitchen at both the cottage and the mews^^, and sending people’s birthday presents out in time for people’s birthdays^^^, as well as regularly updating the web site^^^^ and never running over 1000 words on the blog . . . but since I would demand the surgeon retain the story-telling lobe unaltered I may have some trouble getting scheduled.
^ I’ll know it was a real brain transplant and not just a little minor rewiring if I actually cancel some subscriptions
^^ And soon I can expand into a third kitchen! –I hope.
^^^ The presents themselves aren’t the problem. Getting them wrapped and posted is the problem. It’s really crowded under the bed at the cottage, and in a bad season I can’t get to my sweater shelves at the end of the attic.
^^^^ Which reminds me, I should probably be asking Putnams to send something to Sitemom about FIRE.
† I’m giving you time to look away, of course
†† Okay, this is a teasing comment: Perlith isn’t dead. He was badly wounded, wandered off in delirium, and was rescued and dragged back to life, somewhat unwillingly. He’s lost his memory but not his pride, so while the clothes he was wearing when he was found bleeding to death suggest that he was probably something important in the king’s court and possibly even a sola . . . he doesn’t want to know. He’s turned farm labourer, which is where Aerin one day finds him.
††† A good trick, that, just by the way, reading my handwriting, especially when the extended seizure that is first-draft writing is on me
‡ I have a few frelled stories sitting curling their yellowing corners in boxes–KIRITH is the definitive leader of this category–and a few on floppy disks which are probably now unrecoverable, as technology rolls on. Paper does have its old-fashioned advantages.
‡‡ And to tell you you’re amazing and wonderful. This is very important in an editor.
‡‡‡ ‘Early’ of course contingent on my definition of same.
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