Long, long ago, when I was writing the proposal for the current group of books, I wrote a nice long chunk that I thought would be likely to stay in the book all the way to the end.\u00a0 I didn’t really think it would be chapter one, but in the book as then envisioned, it would have been close up in volume one.<\/p>\n
As volume one did its rapid expansion last year, complete with the final burst of plot-bombs, this long chunk slid into book two.\u00a0\u00a0 Surely it would be the first chapter of book two, I thought.\u00a0 As book two has done its own rapid expansion, that chunk slid toward the middle of the book, where it lodged in Book’s throat.\u00a0 Periodically, in the course of adding newstuff, I’d re-read it and think “Needs a little touching up now, but I’ll catch it in second draft.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But now…it’s more and more obvious that it doesn’t fit what’s grown up around it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Book is not upset.\u00a0 Book thinks “Good, more room for what did<\/em> happen. ”\u00a0 Book doesn’t care how many hours I spent writing it and polishing it.\u00a0\u00a0 We–that is, Book and I–have been arguing about this for awhile now, and it’s clear that it really can’t be handled by tinkering with the wording.\u00a0 It’s not how<\/em> I said it–it’s that<\/em> I said it.\u00a0\u00a0 Just having it there is part of what’s impeding something farther along in Book, and Book–like someone with a stone in their shoe or a speargrass seed in their sock–wants it gone.<\/p>\n I have reminded Book that I am Book’s Writer, with the clear implication that I have the Power,\u00a0 but though that works with characters (sometimes at least)\u00a0 it does not work with Book.\u00a0 Book laughs off any suggestion that my conscious mind (at least)\u00a0 has any authority whatsoever over the actual Story.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That chunk, Book insists, isn’t right and doesn’t belong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (“And it’s boring,” says Book at this moment.\u00a0\u00a0 It is not, I say, with authorly pride.\u00a0 “It is,” Book says.\u00a0 “Now go delete it–all the way, off the hard drive in draft, too–no keeping it around to get other opinions because you think they’ll agree withyou and you can argue with me again–and then we can get on with the REAL story.”<\/p>\n Book is a tyrant.\u00a0 Book is a bully.<\/p>\n But in my experience, Book is nearly always, just-about-without-exception, right.<\/p>\n Dammit.<\/p>\n At least you’re not being deprived of Elis of Pargun and her inimitable aunt or her extremely difficult father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long, long ago, when I was writing the proposal for the current group of books, I wrote a nice long chunk that I thought would be likely to stay in the book all the way to the end.\u00a0 I didn’t really think it would be chapter one, but in the book as then envisioned, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11,107],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-mistakes","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}