The Edit Letter hits you. Roll d20 for damage.

[truepenny]

Yesterday, my editor emailed me her editorial notes on Corambis. I need to sit down with my inner twelve year old, I think, and explain that, no, the edit letter is never going to be an affirmation that I am a beautiful, unique, talented, and sparkly snowflake. Especially the edit letter on something I already knew was severely flawed.

But it was still kind of ouch-like, reading her comments and seeing from them just how far the book I turned in was from the book I want it to be.

(I am having a really hard time not devolving into LOLcat:

I HAS EDIT LETTER

DO NOT WANT

Because not only is that factual, it also sums up pretty nicely the emotional register of my response. :P )

In the broadest terms, what's wrong with the book is two things:

1. The first half is not commensurate with the second half. It's like the front half of a pantomime horse yoked to the back half of a mortar. (No, THIS kind of mortar.)

2. As with The Mirador, the first time through this story I was patently thinking with my genre conventions, and that is wrong wrong wrong.

Oh, and one more:

3. There's a scene in the middle which is psychologically true, and which has been bumping around in my head since I started working on this sprawling monster of a story (I don't really see the four books of the series as four separate stories; that's why I can say decisively that book four is the last book, because I've known the arc, in vague and frequently obfuscated forms, all along), but which I did a fairly rotten job of making narratively inevitable. And I somehow forgot to think about aftermath and consequences and all the stuff that makes a scene part of a story instead of an isolated event.

In even broader terms, the book is a quagmire.

Unless I crack and beg for an extension, which will involve throwing off the production schedule, I have to have the damn thing cleaned up, complete with shining canals and habitats for rare species of waterfowl, by December first.

I may be a little tense and irritable for the foreseeable future.

Just so y'all know.

Comments

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

good luck!

i don't know you, but i do think that your books are beautiful, unique, representative of great talent, and sparkly snowflakes.

[cschells.livejournal.com]

My inner twelve year old is grateful for the reminder about the edit letter/snowflake thing, and will keep just that thought in mind when the comments for the present dissertation chapter come back...

"When I write it feels like I'm carving bone. It feels like I'm creating my own face, my own heart."

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

This is one of the most enheartening posts I've ever read about writing - despite outward appearances.

It should be hard, and I forget that when I read a book like Melusine and its sequels: books so lovely and weaving that it seems like they rolled off your tongue like a song. That first novel hurt me, cut into me, for so many reasons. It is beautiful and terrible - and the continuing story is so much more so knowing that it hurts you too.

But you should know that when I get my hot little hands on my copy of Corambis I will read every word with an extra slice of relish because I'll remember how those those words fought you. Like Gloria Anzaldua says in that quote above, you'll have carved it out of yourself. And that makes me feel wonderful, and appreciative, and awed. THANK YOU for suffering, for my future enjoyment. Thank you.

[heresluck]

1) Just remember: you made it through the dissertation. This is CANDY in comparison. Possibly explosive candy, but still.

2) If you need pep talks, a listener for some quality venting, or an emergency supply of apricot twists, I'm on it; just say the word.

[lilithsaintcrow.livejournal.com]

I have to tell you, I read the title and about hurled my lungs across the room laughing. As soon as I got to "I HAS EDIT LETTER, DO NOT WANT" I about slithered out of the papasan onto the floor. The kids are still looking at me speculatively, as if they're afraid I might start cackling again.

Dude. I so TOTALLY know that feeling. I was just working on a round of revisions yesterday and bemoaning the fact that I was not a shining sparkly unique snowflake.

I recommend chocolate. Sometimes a Vosges bar or a Truffle Pig is the only thing that saves all living beings in my immediate vicinity from the death-ray triggered by edit letter.

The hell of it is, I know my editors are all Good Peeps and want to make the story better. I'm just sensitive as hell and my inner 12-year-old gets involved...and I've learned to give an extra week before I send ANY response. Because, you know, the kneejerk snarkiness just does not need to be flung in my hapless editor's lap. *grin*

Still, I recommend chocolate.

Er....hi

[(Anonymous)]

Hi

I've been lurking here since discovering your labyrinth books, so this is just a little note to say:

1 They're fabulous;
2 You ARE a sparkly unique snowflake; and
3 I'm sure Corambis will be fantastic, please don't feel as if any of your efforts (past and future) go unappreciated.
4 Oh, and I'm hanging out for the wolf-bonded man book.

Warm Regards

Zaf

[cathschaffstump.livejournal.com]

Oh, good luck. I'm sorry the task will be Herculean. I appreciate the sparkly snowflake line. I think it's what we all are really hoping for as writers!

Catherine

[callunav.livejournal.com]

After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that what is wrong with the world is that you can never get snowflake, etc. appreciation from the people whose opinions would actually matter. You can get lots (well, most people I know on LJ, at least, can get lots) from wonderful people whose wonderfulness isn't being called into question and yet whose evaluation of you is...not the point. But editors and supervisors and admissions committees and so forth? Do not do the whole appreciation-of-what-a-fabulous-person-you-are-in-all-your-rounded-deeply-human-flawed-yet-utterly-beautiful-glory thing.

Cleaning a quagmire between now and December seems daunting. As Saralinda would say, I wish you well.

That's what's wrong with the world.

(The only real thing one can do is make sure that the fact that a person appreciates you doesn't automatically move them off the list of people whose appreciation Counts For Something. Because that way lies the bad kind of crazy.)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I meant the paragraph that starts with "Cleaning a quagmire" to be the last paragraph of the reply. Not sure what happened there. My commenting skills are apparently in need of work, which is pretty funny considering how much use they get.

[travellex.livejournal.com]

So Corambis is the new title for Summerdown.
I look forward to it.

Luck!

I finally got my hands on The Virtu last week and read it in 24 hours and I'm still in having a squeeful, keyboard smashing reaction just to thoughts about it.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

*Offers the highly fretful porpentine a scuppernong grape*

Should I ever get published

[phoenix-alpha.livejournal.com]

I think I will automatically go to this entry to remember that any editor comments about needing change is not for me alone.
Have fun, good luck and thanks for the warning.
(PS: Aren't you done yet with those changes? They're waiting you know... ducking!)

You are a beautiful, unique, talented, and sparkly snowflake

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

It takes special talent to make the book on the pages the book in your head (and even then the dialogue between your words and the reader is subject to the reader's subjectivity) and while this pass may not have accomplished that goal, you can do it!

[smills47.livejournal.com]

And you're teaching at the same time?!

Request an extension.

(A totally unsolicited opinion from someone who knows nothing about the publishing business. However, if this just means that we might not get the last book in our hot little hands as soon as we'd like, hmph! The last time I was this caught up in a series it was Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond chronicle which took fourteen years to get to the end of the story. I can wait.)