"You were in my dream. You were driving circles around me."

[greygirlbeast]

Well, yesterday failed to measure up to the poopiness of its promise, though it was hardly conducive to the sort of work I'm supposed to be doing. You know...writing? Still, the anger subsided, and the day got better as it went on – a little better – and I have learned there's at least one person who thinks "awesome" is as overused (and inappropriately used) as do I, and who's willing to speak up. And that's pretty bow tie.

I managed to edit about one-third of Alabaster #3 before my agent called. It's fairly easy editing, as my editor at Dark Horse was very happy with this script, as was I. Hopefully, readers will also be happy with it.

My agent and I talked about Blood Oranges, mostly, and the fact that I'm planning two sequels (the second would be called Fay Grimmer; I don't yet have a title for book three). I'm morally opposed to any trilogy not written by Tolkien or Herbert or William Gibson or Holly Black. But...it's not really a trilogy-type trilogy. My story is more like one long (funny) story divided into three parts. It just works better that way. Also, the trilogy format allows me to write it over three years, instead of all at once. Many options are being explored. I am finally learning about options (after seventeen years in publishing). I'm fucking stubborn like that. Anyway, we also talked about the revamp of the website, and how not finished it is, and how the market is worse than ever, and how Dark Horse is now my day job, and how I'm turning down pretty much all short-story solicitations, and how to connect readers to booksellers that are not Amazon, and how to promote The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and how my craziness sometimes impedes my communication with Merrilee and leads to my overreacting and misunderstanding (and stuff). Oh, Merrilee Heifetz is my bow-tie agent (has been since 1997) at Writers House. And no, I will not tell her your book is an incredible work of literature, the greatest thing since sliced halva, and how she should represent you. So, don't even think I might.

Yesterday, I renewed my membership to The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (I've been a member since I was nominated to the society in 1984).

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Fuck all, but this is a fucking perfect sentence (from Gibson's Neuromancer): The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

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Late in the day, I was treated to pencils for Greg Ruth's cover for Albaster #3, and like the fist two covers, it's goddamn beautiful. Greg Ruth rocks. Which is to say, kittens, he is most bow tie.

Okay, now I go to finish with the editing of #3. I also have to speak to my editor at Dark Horse later today, and write synopses for the two books that will follow Blood Oranges (and, fuck all, but I hate writing synopses). However, my diligence will be rewarded with a visit from readingthedark this evening. We're gonna talk about stuff.

Slightly Improved & a Tad Manic,
Aunt Beast

Comments

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Actually, Gibson writes about that in the audiobook (or talks about it) edition, as part of explaining how sf can't be predictive.

[mithriltabby]

I think the technological anachronisms are something to be savored, seeing how far we’ve come since the time the book was written. I remember reading Second Stage Lensmen when I was young, and being bemused by a passage where Kimball Kinnison uses his new upgraded powers of the mind to cause a computer to perform some mathematical operation (just as a test), and describes the computer as puzzled by this. I puzzled over this for a little while, then flipped to the copyright page on the book and saw that it antedated any computer I’d ever heard of, and I realized that “computer” used to be a job! And I suddenly understood why people would talk about an “electronic computer” or “digital computer”, since I had previously thought the adjective redundant.

[kore-on-lj.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, I knew that because of Pickering's so-called harem, and Ptolemy's computers (slaves who did all the calculations).

[kore-on-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's kinda neat.