I haven’t posted to this blog in a few days, and this morning a stern note arrived under my nailed-shut door threatening dire consequences if I don’t get on the stick. Apparently I have to come up with a post that’ll make Digg’s front page or they’re going to burn my house down, as stipulated in paragraph seven of page 345 of my contract. They say they will try their best to avoid loss of life, but can make no guarantees.
I haven’t posted for a few days because I’m busy, kids. Well, there’s been some napping and boozing, sure, but at those times when I’m not drunk or asleep or drunk and asleep, I’ve had shit to do.
Like, for one, getting my computer ready to play BioShock. I ditched Microsoft Windows long ago for the saner pastures of Linux (actually I started with FreeBSD back in the day, which was insanity, then migrated to Mandrake [er, Mandriva] and now exist in Ubuntu’s space) (and if you understood all that, hail fellow Geek) which makes playing games difficult. I bought a souped up rig from System 76 last year which has the muscle to play games (Doom3 runs like a charm on it) but sadly most game makers ignore Linux. My wife bought me BioShock for my birthday, though, so measures had to be taken, so I threw an extra Hard Drive into the box and installed Windows on that, so now I have a place to play my First Person Shooters.
Aside from that, I’ve been working on a book. I won’t say it isn’t a sequel to The Electric Church. I’ve written the first draft and now various minions are poring over it and handing me suggested edits, ranging from your obvious typos to subtle things like repeated words and plain old garbled storytelling, infodumps, possibly places where I’ve attempted to write drunk and inserted paragraphs of screeds against mine enemies. That last one happens more often than you’d think.
Trust me, this is a necessary step–I’ve never understood anyone, no matter how successful or famous (or not), who resists a brisk edit.
Some people think editing is all about someone telling you how to write. They imagine that you create this pristine work of art, hand it to an editor at a publishing house who proceeds to tell you how to re-write it in order to please the Entertainment Industry. This is a crock–editing is all about fixing the bullshit you’re too close to the story to see. Anyone would benefit from a good edit.
So, while I’m doing my own read-through, I’ve got the minions sending in their comments, and I’m feverishly trying to pull it all together. The first draft was pretty good, but who wants a pretty good book? We want greatness. Or possibly beer. Probably both.
Well, back to work, I suppose. Unless I can find a booze hiding place my wife hasn’t found yet. . .