That book again
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 7:58 amOn last Friday afternoon I opened the file on the current draft of what I will call that book – the one I’ve been trying to write since I finished The Etched City, the mainstream or very nearly mainstream one.
And it occurred to me that I’m sick of not writing this book, and that I won’t have the stamina to keep on not writing it forever.
I wrote 1500 words in the morning, spent the afternoon with a friend, then went back home and stuffed around. Then, at night, when I was tired, the muse turned up in all his glory and said that if I’d write another 1000 words before bed, he’d come on board for the project.
I wrote the 1000 words. Then he dropped the bombshell: You, O worthless slave, he said, will have to write 12 000 words a week, if you actually want to write the book, instead of not writing it yet again. A matter of momentum, he said, and keeping track of things and maintaining coherence.
I asked him, Will there be much redrafting afterwards?
He laughed and said, You know the drill.
His timing — I have to say, and he agrees with a ruthless grin — sucks. I have The Floating World, and Hearts & Guns or whatever it’s going to be called, and some paid work coming up, as well as teaching (not that that takes a great deal of my time, but right now I have a student on whom I have to spend more time than usual out of class).
But does His Excellency care? I should say not. Caring, he says, is for women and cattle. Or something like that. Right now, it appears, is when he can squeeze me into his schedule. So that book and I have been getting reacquainted, to the tune thus far of some 18,000 words.
And His Excellency the Muse? He is sitting resplendent in silver and blue atop a pile of skulls, all of them mine, relics from all the past lifetimes in which he has killed me in one way or another. Wineglass in hand, he is reading a book by some better writer than me. Indicating a minion who is licking the very soles of his boots until they shine like black mirrors, he infers — baring aposematically luminous vampire teeth — that my lot could be worse.
I can hardly feel him helping me, either. But I’m too afraid to stop writing in case that scarcely perceptible sense of his attention, not so much inspiring as disdainfully commanding, is, for all its icy unloving barely-thereness, necessary.
Bastard.
September 10th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Now I can’t find where the ‘moods are for women and cattle’ quote comes from
September 10th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Dune.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
a pile of skulls, all of them mine, relics from all the past lifetimes in which he has killed me in one way or another
I really really like that image. I think I shall squirrel it away!
September 10th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
It probably owes something to Arthur Dent and Agrajag
September 11th, 2009 at 9:05 am
OMG! THAT NOVEL!
I’m lighting spicy incense and praying to the bastard on your behalf as we speak. Maybe he will listen to a good intentioned intercessor with a nice rack.
September 12th, 2009 at 6:38 am
I’m touched! I don’t think anyone has ever prayed on my behalf before! And guess what? Your intercession resulted in an afternoon-long Internet outage here yesterday. Which resulted in that book getting my undivided attention (er, except when I was watching Boston Legal, cough). Very grateful to you!
(Looks down at own rack, sees nothing worthy of a god’s attention. Bum ok. Wonder if I should pray with my ass in the air?)
September 12th, 2009 at 7:23 am
One day, you should write a book about writing that book.
Good luck!
September 12th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Aaaaagh! Aaaaaghhhh!!! (That’s me running screaming. Also probably the most commonly repeated phrase in the book about writing that book.
And thank you! 26,666 words. I love it when Satan shows his nearness via the word count.)
September 12th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I forgot to use my middle initial to be more appropriate to your 26,666 words. =P
September 12th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Speak of the Devil and he doth appear!
September 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
The Devil was drawn by the mention of your wonderful Bum. (It’s always pointed at the ground.)
September 14th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Not wonderful, just ok! (So God’s a breast man and the Devil’s an ass man… it does make sense… I just wish I wasn’t getting Benny Hill visuals along with the concept. O.o)