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desperanceOh, look. It's almost four o'clock. An apple, two satsumae, two pints of coffee and half a KitKat: it's enough, apparently, to see a man through a working day.
Not that I started that early, or worked that hard. My sleep is shot to rags; I am losing the virtupus habits that have seen me through these last few years, the waking early and working straight away. Everything hurts worst, first thing, before the chemicals can cut in. So I didn't get anything done until I trailed down to the Lit & Phil around midday. Where they had blown half their fuses and were running on emergency lights all through, except in the Silence Room. A lesser body might have closed for the duration. Not them, heh. Oh, no.
So: here I am embarking on yet-another pass through Hidden Cities, to satisfy my agents before the editor gets a look. Sigh. This'll be the third. And, as usual, I'm slow to get going. There's a pattern: I toil through the first five pages, and think I might as well give up already. Then I warm up a little, but the first fifteen still feel like a session's work. And I grit my teeth and struggle on manfully till I reach thirty pages or thereabouts, and then I quit with a cry of relief.
Every time, this is the first day's revision. Later days will go better, I'll stay longer, do sixty or seventy pages. Maybe I'll transpose to the pub and do a hundred. But the first day is like battering through cinderblock. With my forehead.
Jade Man's Skin is a reality, woodpulp and printer's inks. I haz one. In fact, I haz two. Is most pretty. Jade tiger!! (Speaking of which, I may have mentioned that my work often has secret titles, hidden puns and so forth. Vol three, Hidden Cities has a hidden title, which may be why I cling so avidly to its public one. Secretly it is The Game of Cat and Dragon, which is why one section is called "The Tiger's Lost Song", which is of course "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" reconsidered. Snortle. No one will ever notice...)
Not that I started that early, or worked that hard. My sleep is shot to rags; I am losing the virtupus habits that have seen me through these last few years, the waking early and working straight away. Everything hurts worst, first thing, before the chemicals can cut in. So I didn't get anything done until I trailed down to the Lit & Phil around midday. Where they had blown half their fuses and were running on emergency lights all through, except in the Silence Room. A lesser body might have closed for the duration. Not them, heh. Oh, no.
So: here I am embarking on yet-another pass through Hidden Cities, to satisfy my agents before the editor gets a look. Sigh. This'll be the third. And, as usual, I'm slow to get going. There's a pattern: I toil through the first five pages, and think I might as well give up already. Then I warm up a little, but the first fifteen still feel like a session's work. And I grit my teeth and struggle on manfully till I reach thirty pages or thereabouts, and then I quit with a cry of relief.
Every time, this is the first day's revision. Later days will go better, I'll stay longer, do sixty or seventy pages. Maybe I'll transpose to the pub and do a hundred. But the first day is like battering through cinderblock. With my forehead.
Jade Man's Skin is a reality, woodpulp and printer's inks. I haz one. In fact, I haz two. Is most pretty. Jade tiger!! (Speaking of which, I may have mentioned that my work often has secret titles, hidden puns and so forth. Vol three, Hidden Cities has a hidden title, which may be why I cling so avidly to its public one. Secretly it is The Game of Cat and Dragon, which is why one section is called "The Tiger's Lost Song", which is of course "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" reconsidered. Snortle. No one will ever notice...)