The End.

[dr_pretentious]

I just finished this pass of revisions to the Big Book.

Oof.

The Big Book is still too big.

You know what? I don't care. I'm finally satisfied that I've told the story well.

That only took...um...May 17, 2003 to August 22, 2006...with intermittent breaks for other projects subtracted, I guess about two and a half years.

When I was in grad school, I used to have a weird little fixation that, as it turns out, lots of doctoral students have: I was sure I'd be hit by a bus before I finished my dissertation, and that I'd die without my degree. (sporos, for example, was convinced he'd be crushed by space debris plummeting to earth on the eve of his dissertation defense.) When I finally took my finished dissertation to the Dean of Rulers, so she could measure my margins with an honest-to-Gods pica ruler and weigh my paper on an honest-to-Gods kitchen scale and then declare me done, I thought to myself, Today is a good day to die, because if I got hit by that bus, my labor would not all have been for nothing.

Writing the Big Book has been a joy. Almost all of it, anyway. I never thought to myself that, if it never got done or published, the work would have been for nothing, because doing the work was desirable in its own right.

Even so, it's nice to think that, if the bus or chunk of Spacelab or whatever it was that missed me long enough for me to finish the damn degree ever catches up with me, I've finished something I'm proud of. If I never touch the manuscript again, if it's the only thing that stands for my existence when I'm gone, well, I will not have embarrassed myself.

That's something I couldn't say even as recently as a week ago, while I was still cutting unnecessary dialogue tags.

Tomorrow, I'll probably make repairs to the Bob novella's badly botched ending, or I'll do some research for the Stisele novel. I will not begin a new Rugosa Coven story yet, no I won't. Maybe I should write that on the blackboard a hundred times. No editor anywhere is expecting a Rugosa Coven story, and an editor actually wants to see the Stisele project.

Is this the moment when I make a dumb wisecrack about getting back on the horse that threw me? Because if I'm going to get Stisele right, I have to get in some more riding lessons.

Comments

[peartreealley.livejournal.com]

Wow! Congrats!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Congatulations, oh fabulous one! Woo-hooo!

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

congrats! and you know where to send a copy. :)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

On its way.

[citabria]

Bob

Now that I'm going to be home for more than I few days I'm going to get back to Bob. Yay!

I know you'd like legal-related feedback -- should I also proffer any non-legal thoughts I have?

[citabria]

Grr ... make that "I" and "a," and please add a "congratulations!" at the end. :)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

All comments are welcome. Thanks for looking it over.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Wow - great googly-moogly! Congratulations!!

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! I'm thrilled to hear it.

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

What a feeling of accomplishment! Quick, get a bottle, breathe into it, and put a stopper in it. When things look bad on some other project that seems out of control, open the bottle and smell the sweet breath of success. It will give you power to overcome the next obstacle.

Hmmmm. Maybe I could work that into a fantasy story with faeries and wizards and such....

Congratulations!

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

Yay! Congratulations! Are you sending it out to publishers any time soon? Or just basking in the doneness of it for a while?

[dthon.livejournal.com]

We say congrats, and kistha says that you can send the last portion ANYTIME YOU WANT. We're both having a hard time giving a review on Bob because of our (dissimilar) history with estates. While I can say I enjoyed the story and I like the writing and the characters, beyond that I'm kind of biased due to my own time of weirdness and house-cleaning. And all the detail bits and tricky historical things were handled well, and I enjoyed taking a tour through my fourth-year 'ism' class from college.

And, over my shoulder, Kistha enjoyed it too, but also reacted to it weird because of the last estate battle. Quote: good story, though!

-Dthon & Kistha

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness. I should have realized I was sending a story about bereavement to the most thoroughly bereaved people I know. Thoughtless of me not to put a warning label on it. Sorry about that. I'm glad Bob was still enjoyable over all.

I'll get the last section of the big book out by snailmail to Kistha probably before the weekend.

Thanks for the comments!

awesome...

[jaime-sama.livejournal.com]

It's nice to be aware of moments like this when they arrive, so you know to savor them. :) Although even with unnecessary dialog tags, that book wouldn't have been an embarrassment as a legacy.

Gazza and I just had a brief exchange about whether we should ask for the freshly-revised Big Book. I still want him to read it so that when things remind me of people or events in the Big Book I'll be able to say so. ;) But we are both feeling a bit busy with our new jobs starting up. So we probably wouldn't get around to reading it for awhile anyway. This nine-to-five employment thing is cutting into my reading time.

I actually have *homework* for my job too...a book on Quaker history, because Gazza's Liberal Arts College (Home of Jaime_sama's Special Collections) has a world class collection of Quaker resources. Luckily for me it is interesting.

Re: awesome...

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I know very little Quaker history, but the bits I do know are full of courage, with the odd bit of Underground Railroad nonviolent adventure. (If Rildis lived in our world, she would probably become a Quaker.) Do pass along Cool Historical Anecdotes, if any jump out at you?

Let me know when you'd like a fresh copy. Hm. Probably waiting until all your boxes are unpacked in the new apartment would be good. Moving in is chaotic enough without a 900-page manuscript threatening to burst its binder clips while Gary's trying to grade student papers.

Good to hear from you. We missed you guys at Sam's movie night. I kept being surprised whenever I remembered you wouldn't be there.