So much for finishing the book (redux)
Oct. 18th, 2006 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceSo I was sitting here thinking "y'know, one almighty sprint, fifty pages, we could do that..." and really kind of looking forward to the effort of it, despite all the other stuff I have to do - the being ill, the meetings, the play, the Sunday wallpapering - and there was a very timely knock at the door. Which yielded the copy-edited manuscript of 'River of the World'.
It has to be back in America by Nov 1, which given the almost indecent haste of the trans-Atlantic postal services means that I have perhaps a week to work on it, if I really want to push at that limit; and while we know that the copy-editors liked the book and so we are confidently expecting not too much tearing at the memory of hair, it is nevertheless a fortnight's work that they are asking me to squeeze into that already-tight week. See, I'm always the same; I approach an edited manuscript, a scribbled-on typescript, with this determined focus, that I am only going to read and respond to the scribbles, the untouched text can fend for itself, just this one time. Yeah, right. Inside five pages, I'm already reading and fretting over every word. Especially at this stage, because this is my last chance to make substantive changes, to get the text right. And just 'cos other people think it's okay, that don't mean a thing. Your regular version of 'low self-esteem' is mountain-high, next to me worrying over my prose. Every single little word can seem the wrong choice of word; and as for the plot, the chapters, Gods, what was I thinking...?
Etc. So there I go, retreating into 150,000 words of chaos and confusion.
Tomorrow. I'll make a start on it tomorrow...
It has to be back in America by Nov 1, which given the almost indecent haste of the trans-Atlantic postal services means that I have perhaps a week to work on it, if I really want to push at that limit; and while we know that the copy-editors liked the book and so we are confidently expecting not too much tearing at the memory of hair, it is nevertheless a fortnight's work that they are asking me to squeeze into that already-tight week. See, I'm always the same; I approach an edited manuscript, a scribbled-on typescript, with this determined focus, that I am only going to read and respond to the scribbles, the untouched text can fend for itself, just this one time. Yeah, right. Inside five pages, I'm already reading and fretting over every word. Especially at this stage, because this is my last chance to make substantive changes, to get the text right. And just 'cos other people think it's okay, that don't mean a thing. Your regular version of 'low self-esteem' is mountain-high, next to me worrying over my prose. Every single little word can seem the wrong choice of word; and as for the plot, the chapters, Gods, what was I thinking...?
Etc. So there I go, retreating into 150,000 words of chaos and confusion.
Tomorrow. I'll make a start on it tomorrow...
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-19 07:41 am (UTC)But, seriously, that makes me feel better. I've got to do someone else's job as well as my own all day Friday and all next week (only the News Editor's job, so no pressure there) so my remaining nine or ten thou is going to go very slowly, even though I'm itching to rattle through it.