Revision progress.
Sep. 30th, 2005 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaI have finished the Sampo read-through. The last hundred pages went extremely quickly: it's very fast to draw long slashes through pages. I have never gotten a book this wrong before in my life.
Umm. This is not true. The first two books I wrote were beyond salvaging, when I was 11 and 14 respectively. This one is (she said modestly) a pretty good book for such a screwed-up book.
And I know how to fix it. I have copious, copious notes for how to fix it, many of which are mostly typing at this point. And -- ooh, you're gonna love this, this is a great innovation in a book -- the ending? Will come roughly when the book stops. And not, like, a hundred pages before the book stops. (See? See how clever I am? Aren't you glad I'm on your friendslist, except, of course, if I'm not?) I mean, I'm all for denouement, but I think a ten-page epilogue will do just fine for denouement. There were some good scenes cut. They were just good scenes for a book I'm not writing and never intend to write.
(It's a dangerous thing for me to talk about books I'm never going to write, because I've already written at least two of them: these two. But I really mean it: I'm not writing a bildungsroman for Ansa Nikkanen's son.)
Also the revised Sampo will feature more sex and violence. So yay for that, too.
I'm a little alarmed that I'm still in the, "No, this is good, I can work with this!" stage. I think I should be at the, "Oh, shit, I'm going to live under my desk, and should anyone find me there I will claim to be a secretary named Kathy and not a writer named Marissa at all" stage. But there's still plenty of time for first-readers to convince me of the utter suckage when I send it to them, so that, at least, is cheering.
Umm. This is not true. The first two books I wrote were beyond salvaging, when I was 11 and 14 respectively. This one is (she said modestly) a pretty good book for such a screwed-up book.
And I know how to fix it. I have copious, copious notes for how to fix it, many of which are mostly typing at this point. And -- ooh, you're gonna love this, this is a great innovation in a book -- the ending? Will come roughly when the book stops. And not, like, a hundred pages before the book stops. (See? See how clever I am? Aren't you glad I'm on your friendslist, except, of course, if I'm not?) I mean, I'm all for denouement, but I think a ten-page epilogue will do just fine for denouement. There were some good scenes cut. They were just good scenes for a book I'm not writing and never intend to write.
(It's a dangerous thing for me to talk about books I'm never going to write, because I've already written at least two of them: these two. But I really mean it: I'm not writing a bildungsroman for Ansa Nikkanen's son.)
Also the revised Sampo will feature more sex and violence. So yay for that, too.
I'm a little alarmed that I'm still in the, "No, this is good, I can work with this!" stage. I think I should be at the, "Oh, shit, I'm going to live under my desk, and should anyone find me there I will claim to be a secretary named Kathy and not a writer named Marissa at all" stage. But there's still plenty of time for first-readers to convince me of the utter suckage when I send it to them, so that, at least, is cheering.
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Date: 2005-09-30 07:07 pm (UTC)AHEM!