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Income is welcome whenever it arrives, but when it arrives the day after the first round of entering figures in the computer–which is in the first quarter by IRS calculation–then the estimated tax part (which–since I write for a living, and the income is wildly variable from quarter to quarter as well as unpredictable–is surprisingly tricky to figure) it’s all to be done over again. And at least one printer in the house decides every year that printing tax documents is something it would rather not do. This year’s printer ploy was announcing it was out of paper when it wasn’t. However: taxes are now signed, sealed into envelopes, ready to mail tomorrow. Whew.
I had a writer friend and another friend over for a family dinner yesterday, and the writer friends and I got into what’s going on with his book and my book (and he and my husband got into details of naval warfare in WWII and other friend and our son were talking about goodness knows what, while I finished getting food on the table. Later it was various air adventures on the Eastern Front (or Western Front, if you’re Russia) in WWII, and bad movies, and…”Is there more [foodname]?”) ANYway.
I was talking about the difficulty of working as much in-story time as I need to into Book IV, in order to finish the whole arc in Book V, especially since Amrothlin (Kieri’s elven uncle) is such a motormouth once you finally get him talking. Well, yes, we need to know all that but not in one great outpouring. Besides the number of words it takes up, which I need for other things.
What have I learned in the last few days, while juggling dinner, taxes, politics, conversations, and so forth…that I can tell you? Well…the last two volumes are engaging each other, rather than their writers, and seem to be deciding where the break should come. I’ve had some plot bombs but far more of those annoying hints. Could X be Y? Will this one survive? Will that one? WHICH, dadgummit!! Just to show that writers, too, can be teased and frustrated by their stories.
But now–it’s evening, and I feel the need to get up and walk around. Last night’s headache, that lingered all night, is now small enough I can almost (the twinge in one sinus just reminded me) forget about it. Tomorrow morning’s the time to hit the chapter running.
Comment by Jonathan Schor — April 10, 2011 @ 5:54 pm
Having retired after thirty three years with the IRS I can appreciate the difficulties of an author.
Just enjoy life and the writing although I appreciate that the writing can be really hard work.
Comment by RichardB — April 10, 2011 @ 6:17 pm
Gah, printers. I am convinced that printers are actually evil spirits just pretending to be technology.
Comment by Dave Ring — April 10, 2011 @ 6:50 pm
Would those be printers’ devils?
Comment by elizabeth — April 10, 2011 @ 10:08 pm
Dave, that’s five points for clever and minus five for the pun….(chuckling, the author goes on her way.)
Comment by elizabeth — April 10, 2011 @ 10:09 pm
RichardB, sometimes they’re wonders and sometimes they’re evil spirits and you never know which you’re going to get when you press print…except that if you’re in a hurry, the evil spirits of printing are hovering, looking for a problem they can exploit.
Comment by elizabeth — April 10, 2011 @ 10:41 pm
Oh yeah. Because of my current publishing schedule (it wasn’t always thus) my “heavy” quarter now is likely to be the first, as much as 70% of the year’s writing income. On-completion payment for next year’s book. On-publication payment for this year’s book. When a contract is in negotiation, that’s another whole barrel of monkeys…the numbers for the previous books determine the offer for the new one, all things being equal…but in this economy they’re not equal (and Random House posting record profits means zip leverage at my level.) I’ve had offers that dropped by 30% and offers that went up that much. (It’s a whole universe better than being laid off from a job you thought would hold until retirement age!) At least whatever this contract turns out to be won’t arrive in first quarter. But it’s why writers who survive either have day jobs or are extremely careful with their money. Or both. Nothing’s predictable and there’s no safety net.
I do enjoy life (and writing) but I came out of a low-income one-parent family and I’m married to a man whose mother was a widow raising three boys and (as always then) was held down in Civil Service grade because she was a woman.
Comment by Dave Ring — April 11, 2011 @ 10:20 am
I expected to pay for the pun, so if I broke even (and especially if you’re chuckling), I’m ahead of the game.
Comment by elizabeth — April 11, 2011 @ 11:49 am
It was a good one, Dave. You can have your five points back.
Comment by Daniel Glover — April 14, 2011 @ 6:55 am
Since Dave got his points back I’ll try one of my own.
Elizabeth,
I want you to write away, right away!
Comment by Eliz. D. — April 14, 2011 @ 9:04 pm
Thank you for the recent book. I’m looking forward to the third book in this series. We also bought the new edition of the first three Paks books, because our old ones were falling apart.
I haven’t posted much lately… my husband came down with cancer this year. I might have been tempted to ask to speed up publication for his sake, but to hear that there will be five books in this series! That is exciting, and I am willing to wait, almost patiently.
Re the tax stuff: it is a bit hard for us too, because he was lucky to get disability pay for some of the time he had to take off, but of course, they don’t take out state and local taxes, and we had to pay. I thought, well, I guess we aren’t paying enough for him to have the opportunity to experience cancer first hand. On the other hand (other than resenting the fiscal irresponsibility of my state gov’t in Ohio), I know that both the city of Akron and the state of Ohio need the money. I’m also hoping that the Federal gov’t don’t plan to take away Medicaid; my “lazy” parents who worked all their lives and were veterans of WWII, now have dementia and depend on the Medicaid payments for nursing home care. But, that’s politics. They need a guy like Kieri to straighten it out.
I enjoyed the plot twists and surprises in the second book. I’m guessing that the publisher won’t let you run beyond a certain number of pages, but I think that sometimes it is O.K. to say a little more in some places. (They let J.K. Rowlings do it!)
I just went through the process of editing 800 pages; it had to be 800, not 801, not even 800 and a half. I found that I had to force myself to take out passive sentences; take out witty expressions and tangents; I thought there would be no interesting literate sentences left, but mysteriously it read better afterwards. It is a very difficult process, and I certainly hope that you will be richly rewarded for the effort.
And I hope that the publisher will publicize this effort; one of the best series I have ever read.
Comment by elizabeth — April 14, 2011 @ 9:22 pm
What a horrible year you’ve had–I’m so sorry. I’m glad that the books give you some pleasure, when you’re under such stress. Husband and parents…that’s a heavy, heavy load, and not made better by smarmy politicians (I can deal better with the modern type of smarmy politicians in science fiction than in fantasy…but that’s sliding off the limits I set for myself here.)
Yes, there are limits to the lengths of books (at least for those of us whose books aren’t runaway bestsellers) because of the cost of production…my editor was apologetic about it, but the accounting folks can be quite firm. And really–though I sometimes (!) complain about the need to cut, the book is usually better for another combing and even some trimming of the fetlocks.
Comment by Eliz. D. — April 14, 2011 @ 10:35 pm
Thank you so much for your reply. I don’t deal well with politics either; it’s like trying to take a stone out of a hoof. No, I wouldn’t throw more work at any of the Paks characters; I think they will have enough with “Voskronin.” Take care!
(Non-relevant plug: I heard the choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, England which is touring the U.S. at the moment. If they happen to perform nearby, it’s the best choir in the world; I loved the program. I’ve sung Sop. 1 for years myself.)