Better Than Dead

You know that thing where you’ve edited a book so often you’ve cut all the life out of it? Yeah, that.

I’ve been reading the last hardcore edit I did on Shivery Bones with an eye towards e-booking it in some future when I magically have the time and wherewithal. I haven’t read it in a year and a half. This is the first reread where I think the edit has actually damaged the book. I went from 122k to 109k and that seems to have stripped some of the flow and life. Understand, we’re talking about a first draft that came in around 150k, which was definitely bloated and in need of cutting. But I think now that 122k version may actually have been pretty tight. The last edit cut into bone.

Certain parts of the manuscript are better for that cutting, but other parts have a disjointed, lifeless feel. I’m considering going back to the the non-eviscerated versions of those scenes/chapters.

Some books can be cut down to bone and still retain life, but not all. I recently read a novel by an author I love. Her series tend to be magically imaginative and inventive, and her books are usually big. It doesn’t matter. I love being in them no matter how long they take to read. But she’s not on the bestseller lists, not quite, and I’ll bet you anything her publisher started blanching at those big manuscripts. I say that because the current book, part of a series I’ve loved as much as the author’s other books, is much shorter than previous ones. Throughout the reading, it felt incomplete to me, missing beats, wanting something that kept slipping through the fingers–cut to the bone and unable to quite articulate itself as those bones clattered along. A large part of the life had been taken away. I intuited that it had once been there, but no more.

In the current publishing climate, this is happening quite a lot to midlist writers. Even to some bestsellers, I hear. It’s a dirty, crying shame. These are half-books, not allowed to be what they naturally are. E-books, in the other hand, don’t have to be as skinny as paper books to “turn a profit.” (Though, don’t get me started on shaky publishing accounting. Better you should read this post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.) (Thanks, safewrite, for the link.)

E-books don’t care if you go a little long. Which is not to say they shouldn’t be edited and made as tight and crisp as possible, but you don’t have to kill them in the process. They don’t have to rattle along like a defleshed skeleton struggling to keep itself in one piece.

Random quote of the day:

 

“Forgiveness is always a mystery and a grace, surpassing all miracles.”

—Elizabeth Cunningham, The Passion of Mary Magdalen

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

I don’t like piracy, but this legislation is taking a sledgehammer to the problem when a scalpel is needed.

Random quote of the day:

 

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges.”

—Sir Francis Bacon, “Of Marriage and Single Life,” Essays, Civil and Moral, Ch. VIII

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Not to be confused with these guys.

No, I’m talking about the guy who painted this:

I became enamored of this painting when studying Art History the year before I went to Europe for the first time—so enamored, in fact, with all the luscious Italian Renaissance art that I had to go see it in person. I was poor as dirt, but I bent all my will towards saving money to go. I quit Santa Monica College and worked full time for a year before applying to UCLA. My mother was freaked that I wouldn’t finish school, but I knew I would once I got a little traveling out of my system. Ostensibly, I was saving towards the Big U (and I did a little of that), but really I was hellbent on going to Europe. And I went. And then I came back and settled in to working part time to put myself through college. I did earn my BA, much to my mother’s relief.

But, oh! The sights I saw before that. I saw the original of my beloved Lippi and many another wonderful painting at the Uffizi in Florence. And the David at the Academia! Ghiberti’s doors! So much, so much. I was swimming in honey beneath the Tuscan sun.

A few days later I was in Assisi going through the basilica to see the Giotto and Lorenzetti frescoes, back before the basilica and the frescoes got ruined in an earthquake. I was going through the Upper Church and there was an open door leading to a outdoor balcony. It was a glorious, sunny fall day and this balcony offered staggering views of the rolling Umbrian countryside so I was naturally drawn outside. The monks probably counted on luring the tourists like that on beautiful days because they’d set up a little gift shop out there. I found this and had to have it:

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Random quote of the day:

“Research is formalized curiosity.  It is poking and prying with a purpose.  It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.”

—Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks On the Road

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

The nearest book to me is a blank journal. Page 45 is like every other page in the book. That would be blank.

Reaching slightly further afield I pick up Rapture in Death by J. D. Robb:

Eve awoke with the cat stretched over her chest and the bedside ‘link beeping.

That sums it up nicely also.

How’s your sex life?

Okay, so it isn’t released until January 31 and I preordered it. But it was the very first book that fell into my cart in 2012.

You should pick up/download your own copy.

Random quote of the day:

“When I invite a woman to dinner I expect her to look at my face.  That’s the price she pays.”

—Groucho Marx, A Night At the Opera

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Goethe said, “Talent is developed in privacy,” you know?  And it’s really true.  There is a need for aloneness which I don’t think most people realize for an actor.  It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting.”

—Marilyn Monroe, interview, LIFE Magazine, Aug. 3, 1962
(on the stands the week she died)

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.