As You Know, Rildis...
Jul. 21st, 2005 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_pretentiousProductivity means doing the same jobs with fewer words. Today I wrote about five pages, one page of which does a job that, in my first draft, required 40 pages. Well, that 40-page infodump was the low-hanging fruit, and now I've finally plucked it. I'm pretty sure none of the remaining cuts will yield such dramatic improvements to the word count.
"But I liked the 40-page procession!"![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vgnwtch protested while we were writing at Starbucks. "It was such a great way to get the history in."
"Yes, but this has more exposition than the First Coronation Day parade did. In one page." Which I read aloud. And it did. And it was good. How much of a three-century history of frequent, bloody regicide can you cram into the seating chart of a dreadful party? Quite a lot. And not a single as-you-know-Bob cheap exposition gimmick anywhere in sight.
In other news, I finally broke down and made one of those little icon thingies. Haven't decided if I like it yet. Aside from the clavicles (So sharp! You'll put your eye out!), it's not a bad likeness. It's kind of odd that the range of things the image generator offers for the icon to hold in its hands includes battle axes and iguanas, but not pens.
In my icon, it's High Flowering all year long.
Oh, Brina, did you have to tag me with the 10 joys meme?
Free-associating in no order at all:
1. Good draft days
2. Good revision days
3. H.D.'s poetry
4. Cardamom
5. Amber
6. Kissing
7. Making up silly song lyrics with Dan
8. Variations on the sonnet
9. Mocha
10. Remembering the weird dream I woke from last week, in which I cleaned out my parents' basement and found a secret door that opened to a sunny day on the front steps of 17 Point Quay, Morningside, Beltresa. A breezy day with little white wavelets on the canal (thanks, no doubt, to the Royal Weather Agency). And my own boat tied and bobbing at the dock.
"But I liked the 40-page procession!"
vgnwtch protested while we were writing at Starbucks. "It was such a great way to get the history in.""Yes, but this has more exposition than the First Coronation Day parade did. In one page." Which I read aloud. And it did. And it was good. How much of a three-century history of frequent, bloody regicide can you cram into the seating chart of a dreadful party? Quite a lot. And not a single as-you-know-Bob cheap exposition gimmick anywhere in sight.
In other news, I finally broke down and made one of those little icon thingies. Haven't decided if I like it yet. Aside from the clavicles (So sharp! You'll put your eye out!), it's not a bad likeness. It's kind of odd that the range of things the image generator offers for the icon to hold in its hands includes battle axes and iguanas, but not pens.
In my icon, it's High Flowering all year long.
Oh, Brina, did you have to tag me with the 10 joys meme?
Free-associating in no order at all:
1. Good draft days
2. Good revision days
3. H.D.'s poetry
4. Cardamom
5. Amber
6. Kissing
7. Making up silly song lyrics with Dan
8. Variations on the sonnet
9. Mocha
10. Remembering the weird dream I woke from last week, in which I cleaned out my parents' basement and found a secret door that opened to a sunny day on the front steps of 17 Point Quay, Morningside, Beltresa. A breezy day with little white wavelets on the canal (thanks, no doubt, to the Royal Weather Agency). And my own boat tied and bobbing at the dock.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-22 10:21 pm (UTC)There are two answers about the novel.
The first answer is, a very, very long time of otherwise indeterminable duration. The agent who requested the first three chapters is in the middle of selling her house, so even if she's read them and liked them, I wouldn't expect to hear from her any time soon. Assuming the ms gets accepted by a publisher, which probably won't happen soon even if it does happen, the book wouldn't be published for 12-18 months.
The other answer is, if you want to read it, don't object to reading drafts rather than camera-ready copy, and don't feel like waiting for a couple of years, you could have a look at it now. I'll have a newly cleaned-up version of the first quarter of the manuscript in a few weeks. If you want to get started right away, you can try to persuade Julia to pass you the copy she's been reading.