The year in review
Dec. 31st, 2007 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithCapsule version? Professionally: it got better. Personally: it sucked.
A year ago at this time, I was gearing up to begin the Endgame rewrite. I knew I needed to carve out one of the POVs, which just didn’t work out. I also needed to retell the story because the way I had written it the first time through didn’t work well enough. Too much backstory. Vague ending. In between, an overlong interstellar voyage. I had been sitting on the revision letter for almost two months, because while I had an idea what I had to do, I didn’t know how to do it. What’s that old saying, that nothing focuses a man’s mind like his impending execution? Well, nothing focuses a writer’s mind like an approaching deadline. That pinpoint light in the distance, getting bigger and bigger. The whistle and the rumble, getting louder and louder.
As usual, I thought I’d be able to reuse much more of the submission draft than I wound up salvaging. Also as usual, things got better toward the end of the book. That wonderful feeling when you just need to tweak a scene or two and update some details in order to call a chapter complete. So much better than that not-so-wonderful feeling when you realize a chapter needs a ground floor rewrite and none of the original material can be used anywhere because it just doesn’t fit into what the story’s become.
Want to know the funny thing? The interstellar voyage is just about the same length, page-wise. The change in action and POV made all the difference.
Anyway, after six weeks of nail-biting, let’s-see-how-much-of-my-vacation-I-can-blow-through-in-the-first-two-months-of-the-year, I finished the rewrite. Turned it in, and started noodling with the Gideon proposal. Then Mom, who hadn’t been feeling well for a month or so, had the first of three emergency room visits. Her mobility and energy levels steadily declined until the third ER visit in mid June, when the CAT scan was ordered and the diagnosis made. Metastatic renal cell carcinoma. She was admitted to the hospital. She never came home. Five and a half weeks later, she was gone.
You never are able to get your feet under you. It just keeps coming. You learn what matters. What’s important and what isn’t--you learn the difference. You also learn that some decisions aren’t yours, and that there are times when there is nothing you can do, and that sometimes, no matter how many times you ask, the answer never changes and it’s always No.
I learned that I work for some good people, and that I have good friends. That’s worth a lot. I just wish I could have found it out some other way.
*************
I have the best puppies in the world. They both had health issues this year, which seem to be under control. But they’re both getting older, and it turned out that the Mickster is a couple of years older than previously thought. That didn’t surprise me too much, though it did sadden me. It’s that much less time that I’ll have him around. I’m hoping that maybe with a little work, and a little luck, I can keep him around that much longer. King needs a buddy to keep him in line.
For the next two years, I have some writing to do. Gideon, which will with some luck hit the shelves in late 2009, followed by the sequel in 2010. The Publishers Lunch blurb, which is as accurate as a one-line description can be, is as follows: a woman arrives back in her hometown to discover she is part of a centuries-old battle. It’s a genre change, from science fiction to supernatural thriller. What I haven’t mentioned previously is that the books will be coming out under another name, which is yet to be decided upon. I had always assumed this would happen, because I believed the sales of the Jani series weren’t all that great. Well, apparently they weren’t all that bad, either, but even so, the wish is to mark the Gideon books as Different! I don’t want to jinx matters and admit that I have hopes, but I have hopes. That if this isn’t the breakout, it’s at least a breakout. The proposal was really well received, but in the end it's the books that matter.
I hope 2008 is a better year. It will definitely be a busier one.
Happy New Year, Everybody!
A year ago at this time, I was gearing up to begin the Endgame rewrite. I knew I needed to carve out one of the POVs, which just didn’t work out. I also needed to retell the story because the way I had written it the first time through didn’t work well enough. Too much backstory. Vague ending. In between, an overlong interstellar voyage. I had been sitting on the revision letter for almost two months, because while I had an idea what I had to do, I didn’t know how to do it. What’s that old saying, that nothing focuses a man’s mind like his impending execution? Well, nothing focuses a writer’s mind like an approaching deadline. That pinpoint light in the distance, getting bigger and bigger. The whistle and the rumble, getting louder and louder.
As usual, I thought I’d be able to reuse much more of the submission draft than I wound up salvaging. Also as usual, things got better toward the end of the book. That wonderful feeling when you just need to tweak a scene or two and update some details in order to call a chapter complete. So much better than that not-so-wonderful feeling when you realize a chapter needs a ground floor rewrite and none of the original material can be used anywhere because it just doesn’t fit into what the story’s become.
Want to know the funny thing? The interstellar voyage is just about the same length, page-wise. The change in action and POV made all the difference.
Anyway, after six weeks of nail-biting, let’s-see-how-much-of-my-vacation-I-can-blow-through-in-the-first-two-months-of-the-year, I finished the rewrite. Turned it in, and started noodling with the Gideon proposal. Then Mom, who hadn’t been feeling well for a month or so, had the first of three emergency room visits. Her mobility and energy levels steadily declined until the third ER visit in mid June, when the CAT scan was ordered and the diagnosis made. Metastatic renal cell carcinoma. She was admitted to the hospital. She never came home. Five and a half weeks later, she was gone.
You never are able to get your feet under you. It just keeps coming. You learn what matters. What’s important and what isn’t--you learn the difference. You also learn that some decisions aren’t yours, and that there are times when there is nothing you can do, and that sometimes, no matter how many times you ask, the answer never changes and it’s always No.
I learned that I work for some good people, and that I have good friends. That’s worth a lot. I just wish I could have found it out some other way.
*************
I have the best puppies in the world. They both had health issues this year, which seem to be under control. But they’re both getting older, and it turned out that the Mickster is a couple of years older than previously thought. That didn’t surprise me too much, though it did sadden me. It’s that much less time that I’ll have him around. I’m hoping that maybe with a little work, and a little luck, I can keep him around that much longer. King needs a buddy to keep him in line.
For the next two years, I have some writing to do. Gideon, which will with some luck hit the shelves in late 2009, followed by the sequel in 2010. The Publishers Lunch blurb, which is as accurate as a one-line description can be, is as follows: a woman arrives back in her hometown to discover she is part of a centuries-old battle. It’s a genre change, from science fiction to supernatural thriller. What I haven’t mentioned previously is that the books will be coming out under another name, which is yet to be decided upon. I had always assumed this would happen, because I believed the sales of the Jani series weren’t all that great. Well, apparently they weren’t all that bad, either, but even so, the wish is to mark the Gideon books as Different! I don’t want to jinx matters and admit that I have hopes, but I have hopes. That if this isn’t the breakout, it’s at least a breakout. The proposal was really well received, but in the end it's the books that matter.
I hope 2008 is a better year. It will definitely be a busier one.
Happy New Year, Everybody!
