Suspended animation (waiting for Godot)

[pbray]

Last night I woke abruptly from a dream in which I was reading the revision letter for the manuscript I'd sent in earlier this month. In the letter, my editor gently pointed out that I'd inserted a huge chunk of fanfic in the middle of the book, and I should be prepared to cut that section. She didn't think that we could get licensing rights for that property--particularly since I'd killed off one of their main characters.

I called my editor to discuss and informed her that the character in question NEEDED TO DIE. The ever-patient Anne agreed, and then pointed out, once again, the issue of licensing.

I awoke half-convinced that I had indeed received that revision letter and it took a while for me to realize that it was all part of a dream. When the heavy plow came down the road on its second pass, I realized that this was probably what had originally awoken me.

I can't remember which TV show the dream referenced--it might have been Heroes or CSI. But I'm pretty darn sure that there isn't a chunk of fanfic in the manuscript I sent, and I know I haven't killed off anyone else's characters. Despite how much they need to die.

I suppose it just goes to show what the mind will come up with when it's fretting. There's nothing quite like that awful silence between the time you deliver a manuscript and the time you get your first feedback--especially when it's a project where you're not sure if it worked or not. It's a bit like that moment where you slam into an obstacle and you're waiting for the pain to register to figure out how badly you're hurt. Now just imagine that moment stretching out for weeks....

Optimism. It's for other people.

Comments

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to freeze a copy of your mental state at the end of the book, then reboot back to that saved copy when the time came round for revisions?

I don't know how mizkit, matociquala and other prolific authors manage to jump from one project to another as they go from writing new material to revising previously submitted manuscripts, to final copyedits on even older projects. I'm more single-threaded myself--not sure I could keep all those balls in the air.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've scratched notes on index cards. I also saved another version of the current ms and activated the Track Changes option so that anything change I make shows up in underlined RED. Because stuff is still dropping into my head at odd moments.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Although I will say that this past summer, I wrote the Incident novella and a short story while still working on Endgame. I mean, I didn't work as hard on Endgame as I should have during this time since my mind was wrapped up with the novella. But after I finished the short stuff, I returned to the novel. It was my first exercise in brain-stretch, and I think it worked. I hope to do more of it.

So, I think it can be a learned behavior.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I think my knack for it came from working tech support for an internet company just when at-home-net was becoming The Thing. I learned to disengage the part of my brain that was troubleshooting, because 75% of the problems were fixable by rote, so I could do other things while I was talking to people on the phone. I was doing huge amounts of online role play at the time, as well, so a part of my mind was frequently working on something creative. I could pretty much talk about one thing and think/type about another. I could literally carry on two or three spoken conversations at the same time, listening to what people were saying and shuttling back and forth to respond (I did that one day at work and slowly all the conversations died as the people I was talking to realized what I was doing and gaped at me). I really kind of think the ability to work on multiple projects and switch from one to another is an extrapolation of that.

Also, revisions or copy edits cropping up just when I'm utterly sick of a project makes for a nice change, so perhaps that also helps keep my mind fresh in a way. Gotta say, though, after last year, the last 3 months have been comparatively very, very slow for writing, and I'm grateful for it. :)