An hour in the life
Jun. 24th, 2008 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceMy houseguests are sleeping; I am seizing this last late chance to do my job, before I go away.
The crucial thing is to cut and polish the story I'm reading at the Phantoms gig tonight. I wrote it a while back, a month or two, and deliberately haven't revisited. It was just under five thousand words in first draft, and I'd like to get it down under four.
There's nothing big that could go, so I'm doing delicate surgery, line by line. Which I kind of enjoy, 'specially as I know that none of this is permanent. I'm making a reading edition; as much as I want to keep can go back in for a published version.
So: I read over every line, in context and on its own, and my mind goes snip-snip and my fingers hit the keys and the story becomes slimmer, a few words here and a few words there. Surprising how swiftly that mounts up; I'm on page six of twelve and I've cut six hundred words already.
And I'd barely started before the phone rang and that was Sean, one of my co-readers tonight, anxious about the length of his own story. I told him to relax; cut for art, I said, not for anxiety. (No, I did. Word for word. I even speak in alliteration sometimes.)
And I'd barely got back to the story before the post came: a copy of "The Author", the professional journal published by the Society of Authors; an apology from the post office for the misdelivery of a parcel that I'd had to pay for twice (no refund, though: grr!); and a cheque. A cheque! From that nice Jim Frenkel, for the reprint of last year's Phantoms story "The House of Mechanical Pain" in YBFH 21.
And I'd barely got back to the story before I remembered that the deadline for registering new books for PLR is the end of this month, and I'm not going to be here after tomorrow. So I went to the site and printed out the form, and will try to get it filled in and posted. There's not a lot of impetus when the books are only published in the States, but the gigs we do with The Write Fantastic ensure that a few copies at least do get into the library system over here.
And I'd barely got back to the story before there was a rat-a-tat on the door, and Barry and I went down to answer it, and it was the nice Fed-Ex lady with a box for me. Big heavy box. Ooh goody, it has to be books. So I sign and smile and usher Barry back inside (for values of "usher" that border on "backheel") and close the door and tear into the box with teeth & claws, because we like books, we do.
And as I opened it I realised what it had to be, my rather-overdue authors' copies of the US edition of "Shelter", yay!
And then I lifted off the bubble-wrap, and -
Actually it's John Harvey's copies of his US editions, and not mine at all. Sigh. I foresee an exchange of parcels in our near future.
And I'd barely got back to the story before I thought, how often am I that busy with varied workstuff, all in an hour...? So I stopped to post this.
And now I'm going back to the story...
The crucial thing is to cut and polish the story I'm reading at the Phantoms gig tonight. I wrote it a while back, a month or two, and deliberately haven't revisited. It was just under five thousand words in first draft, and I'd like to get it down under four.
There's nothing big that could go, so I'm doing delicate surgery, line by line. Which I kind of enjoy, 'specially as I know that none of this is permanent. I'm making a reading edition; as much as I want to keep can go back in for a published version.
So: I read over every line, in context and on its own, and my mind goes snip-snip and my fingers hit the keys and the story becomes slimmer, a few words here and a few words there. Surprising how swiftly that mounts up; I'm on page six of twelve and I've cut six hundred words already.
And I'd barely started before the phone rang and that was Sean, one of my co-readers tonight, anxious about the length of his own story. I told him to relax; cut for art, I said, not for anxiety. (No, I did. Word for word. I even speak in alliteration sometimes.)
And I'd barely got back to the story before the post came: a copy of "The Author", the professional journal published by the Society of Authors; an apology from the post office for the misdelivery of a parcel that I'd had to pay for twice (no refund, though: grr!); and a cheque. A cheque! From that nice Jim Frenkel, for the reprint of last year's Phantoms story "The House of Mechanical Pain" in YBFH 21.
And I'd barely got back to the story before I remembered that the deadline for registering new books for PLR is the end of this month, and I'm not going to be here after tomorrow. So I went to the site and printed out the form, and will try to get it filled in and posted. There's not a lot of impetus when the books are only published in the States, but the gigs we do with The Write Fantastic ensure that a few copies at least do get into the library system over here.
And I'd barely got back to the story before there was a rat-a-tat on the door, and Barry and I went down to answer it, and it was the nice Fed-Ex lady with a box for me. Big heavy box. Ooh goody, it has to be books. So I sign and smile and usher Barry back inside (for values of "usher" that border on "backheel") and close the door and tear into the box with teeth & claws, because we like books, we do.
And as I opened it I realised what it had to be, my rather-overdue authors' copies of the US edition of "Shelter", yay!
And then I lifted off the bubble-wrap, and -
Actually it's John Harvey's copies of his US editions, and not mine at all. Sigh. I foresee an exchange of parcels in our near future.
And I'd barely got back to the story before I thought, how often am I that busy with varied workstuff, all in an hour...? So I stopped to post this.
And now I'm going back to the story...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-25 09:42 am (UTC)Damn. I can guess which parcel that was, and am sorry you ended up paying twice, curse them.