Paksworld

It’s now clear to me that there’s no way I can finish the revisions before Tuesday, when I leave for St. Louis and then, some days later, points north and east.

Several important responses, from which I expect much impetus to rearrange & rewrite, haven’t come in.   I need to do laundry, shop for remaining things I need for the trip (like more cardstock for more business cards) and I have to sing both services tomorrow.   Time has run out.

Nonetheless, from responses received and my own re-reading, progress is being made, just slower than I wanted.   I really wanted to be able to present Book Two, all combed and brushed, with its boots spit-shined and its perfectly arranged insignia bright, to my editor when I get to NYC, but…it’s not going to happen.  Not like that.  If she wants to see it, she’ll see it in a state where I don’t normally let editors discover what a mess even the late drafts are.     Editors, like agents and alpha readers, always want to meddle…and editors come cloaked in Authority.   If they decide something’s a problem early, then they’re likely to demand that it vanish from the book, even if the real problem is that I haven’t yet made it obvious enough why it belongs and is absolutely essential to the final resolution of six lines of  plot.  (I may not know yet…and writer-not-knowing is but putty in the hands of Editors, who know not only many books but also how the sausage of publishing is made.)

I will snag one of the dilatory experienced alphas by the short hairs when I visit her after the Ninc conference–she will not escape me then.   Heh-heh-heh.    The one I thought I had trapped earlier this week made an agile feint and retreat.   And time’s run out, and I’ve just spent 41 minutes online answering email, removing spam from all the spam buckets, answering a few comments here and there.

I must get ready for the trip.  I’d rather work on the book.  WHY did I agree to the trip???  (NB–I’ll enjoy it once the train starts to move.  I always do.  But the book, which wants to be done, isn’t done, and can’t be done by time to leave, and that’s like an itch you can’t scratch. )