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No More Red Marks.
May. 14th, 2006 11:35 amTwo years ago today, I wrote:
Gods, I'm frelling sick of proofreading. It's bad enough, having to write a book, but then to be dragged back over it again, and again, and again, in this futile struggle to make it perfect. It will never be perfect. It's filled with flaws and warts and contradictions, and it's maddening to know that that's the best I can do. That this warped child is the best I can spawn. The fruit never falls far from the tree, blah, blah, blah, frelling blah. Maybe the next book will be My Perfect Book, and the whole world will be awed, and I'll never have to write another. Yeah, sure, and maybe Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny will get together and bring me a new cybernetic body, complete with my own temporal displacement field. One's at least as likely as the other.
Which is, of course, entirely terrifying, as I find myself feeling more or less exactly the same, especially about the cybernetic body, 730 days later. Then it was Murder of Angels. Now it's Daughter of Hounds. Yesterday, after proofreading "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" (and finding far too many errors), I reversed my earlier decision and concluded that the appendices should not be included after all. So, I've removed them, which shrinks the ms. from 695 pp. to 621 pp. I feel like I've cut a lead weight free. Anyway, today I finish this, because today I have to finish this. At the end, there is great relief in the fact of an inviolable deadline. Yesterday was actually a bit of a wash out. No reason to go into detail. I think I was still exhausted from the absurdities of Friday. I sat at the desk as long as I could, which was until about 4 p.m., and then I didn't anymore. I took a very, very hot bath, dozed on the sofa, ate spaghetti when Spooky sat it in front of me, and then we spent the evening watching Tom Baker in all six episodes of Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1976), and then we watched almost all the 149 minutes of extras on the second disc.
This morning, before Spooky got up, I was sitting here reading the entry on Quentin Crisp on Wikipedia. It made me sad in that annoying, unexpected way. It also made me want to see Orlando (1992) again, and so I went and made the Tilda Swinton icon that appears with this entry.
I think that this next issue of Sirenia Digest is going to be particularly erotic. Well, as I define erotic, which isn't how most people define erotic, hence the fact that Sirenia Digest is not yet outselling Penthouse or those silly Anita Blake novels. I wish to write something brutally, polymorphously, violently sexy. I wish to pummel raw meat with my bare fists until there's no telling who's blood is who's. I wish to bend myself someway I've not yet bent. Oh, and on an only vaguely related note, but what the frell, it's my journal, as I was getting sleepy last night, I found myself ranting about homophobic, straight, cisgendered men who get off watching straight, cisgendered women playing at lesbianism. It's one of those things I'll never quite understand, like football and NASCAR and unsweetened tea. Spooky is amazingly tolerant of these rants, even at 2: 30 a.m. when no one wants to hear about straight, homophobic, cisgendered men and the slutty straight girls who make out for them. This is how I know she really loves me. And I'm still watching the Sirenia Digest poll. I'm fairly certain that more of our subscribers are LJ users, so I'm hoping for more votes. Please. I'm trying to make an informed decision. Thanks.
The platypus, angry that I'm taking so long with this entry, has begun to goad me with the news that my frelling -2 birthday will be here in only 12 days. It also says this means I'll be halfway to -42. It's a cruel mistress, this platypus. A wicked monotreme, indeed. For example, even as I type, it's compelling me to include a link to my Amazon wishlist. Curse you, dratted platypus!
Gods, I'm frelling sick of proofreading. It's bad enough, having to write a book, but then to be dragged back over it again, and again, and again, in this futile struggle to make it perfect. It will never be perfect. It's filled with flaws and warts and contradictions, and it's maddening to know that that's the best I can do. That this warped child is the best I can spawn. The fruit never falls far from the tree, blah, blah, blah, frelling blah. Maybe the next book will be My Perfect Book, and the whole world will be awed, and I'll never have to write another. Yeah, sure, and maybe Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny will get together and bring me a new cybernetic body, complete with my own temporal displacement field. One's at least as likely as the other.
Which is, of course, entirely terrifying, as I find myself feeling more or less exactly the same, especially about the cybernetic body, 730 days later. Then it was Murder of Angels. Now it's Daughter of Hounds. Yesterday, after proofreading "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" (and finding far too many errors), I reversed my earlier decision and concluded that the appendices should not be included after all. So, I've removed them, which shrinks the ms. from 695 pp. to 621 pp. I feel like I've cut a lead weight free. Anyway, today I finish this, because today I have to finish this. At the end, there is great relief in the fact of an inviolable deadline. Yesterday was actually a bit of a wash out. No reason to go into detail. I think I was still exhausted from the absurdities of Friday. I sat at the desk as long as I could, which was until about 4 p.m., and then I didn't anymore. I took a very, very hot bath, dozed on the sofa, ate spaghetti when Spooky sat it in front of me, and then we spent the evening watching Tom Baker in all six episodes of Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1976), and then we watched almost all the 149 minutes of extras on the second disc.
This morning, before Spooky got up, I was sitting here reading the entry on Quentin Crisp on Wikipedia. It made me sad in that annoying, unexpected way. It also made me want to see Orlando (1992) again, and so I went and made the Tilda Swinton icon that appears with this entry.
I think that this next issue of Sirenia Digest is going to be particularly erotic. Well, as I define erotic, which isn't how most people define erotic, hence the fact that Sirenia Digest is not yet outselling Penthouse or those silly Anita Blake novels. I wish to write something brutally, polymorphously, violently sexy. I wish to pummel raw meat with my bare fists until there's no telling who's blood is who's. I wish to bend myself someway I've not yet bent. Oh, and on an only vaguely related note, but what the frell, it's my journal, as I was getting sleepy last night, I found myself ranting about homophobic, straight, cisgendered men who get off watching straight, cisgendered women playing at lesbianism. It's one of those things I'll never quite understand, like football and NASCAR and unsweetened tea. Spooky is amazingly tolerant of these rants, even at 2: 30 a.m. when no one wants to hear about straight, homophobic, cisgendered men and the slutty straight girls who make out for them. This is how I know she really loves me. And I'm still watching the Sirenia Digest poll. I'm fairly certain that more of our subscribers are LJ users, so I'm hoping for more votes. Please. I'm trying to make an informed decision. Thanks.
The platypus, angry that I'm taking so long with this entry, has begun to goad me with the news that my frelling -2 birthday will be here in only 12 days. It also says this means I'll be halfway to -42. It's a cruel mistress, this platypus. A wicked monotreme, indeed. For example, even as I type, it's compelling me to include a link to my Amazon wishlist. Curse you, dratted platypus!
