Writing

1. a. I wrote a huge piece for the Scene about a guy who’s been dead 200 years. I expected them to cut it down by like 2/3 because it is an enormous info dump. An interesting info dump, I think, but an info dump none the less. But no, they’re running the whole damn thing. Honestly, I can’t believe it. It’s so awesome.

1. b. But y’all, you should see how Jim Ridley turned it from something… well, like what I write. Very nerdy. To something that has a little interesting bite to it. The more I work with him, and really any of the guys over there, the more I think I need an editor. I do my best, you know? But I need someone who can tease out better stuff from that.

2. The part of the Sue Allen thing I wrote yesterday is not very long, but man, it took it out of me. It bugs me, because it’s so terrible for John, but I really feel like you need to see how his character arc goes, how there was not a single real hand out to him to help him his whole life (we can argue about William when/if the book ever comes out) and when help finally comes, it can’t do enough good for him fast enough to knock him off his terrible course. But it does mean that a character I was fond of before has a side to him that makes me feel a little ugh about him now.

3. I’m trying to strike a balance, too, because John, because of his peculiarities, is pretty omnisexual and though he gets helped by a woman and dicked over by a dude, I don’t want it to seem like that’s really because there’s something inherently wrong with liking a dude. I’m hoping that the dicking over is of a heterosexual enough nature, due to John’s boundary issues, that readers just roll with it. John will fuck anyone. He wants emotionally unavailable men to love him back because he has daddy issues. Poor John. Poor serial killing John. I keep having to keep that in mind. He’s kind of the bad guy.

4. It’s the 26th! “Allendale” starts in five days! What if it’s terrible?! Ha ha ha. Whew. Well, what can you do? I hope you’re ready, Gallatin!

5. Oh, one last thing. So, there was this story over at IO9 yesterday and I am pleased to report that John cannot accurately tell us what kind of time travel story he’s in because he only travels to the past once and he wasn’t paying that close of attention to what things were like before he left, so he doesn’t know if they’ve changed or not.

6. One last, last thing. So, I think the story mentioned in points 1a. and 1b will be out tomorrow.

Edited to add: Oh, crap, I forgot 7. Look at this madness! People really get advances like this? And then just don’t deliver? What the fuck? Publishing is weird.