"I'm sick of sitting round here trying to write this book"

[pameladean]

EDITED TO ADD:

I seem to have conveyed the impression that Fourth Street was mean to me, or contained people who were mean to me, or that the convention disappointed me in some way. This is not at all what I meant. It was a wonderful convention and I am very much looking forward to the next one, when I will be forewarned about the contents of my head and able to deal with them with more equanimity.


I keep starting LJ entries and abandoning them because I get into convoluted descriptions of events I'm trying just to list sparsely.

Come to think of it, that's a lot of my problem with this book. Finding a shape to put the first volume into has been exceptionally difficult, but I think I have finally found it a nice Jello mold, in an abstract shape that might be a library, or a unicorn, or an emotional situation. I have not, however, really made the text any shorter. Once I'm done with writing the (new) last chapter, I'll go over the whole thing from start to finish and see if anything can be cut. I'm talking about entire paragraphs, not a stray word here and there.

Other things I've done this summer have included:

Attending Fourth Street Fantasy Convention. It was good for my writing and my brain, but dealt a number of emotional and intellectual blows that I'm still wrestling with.

Gone to Itasca State Park with Raphael. We had never before seen so many dragonflies there. They were flying up from the road as we drove along, every few feet.

Coopted Eric to help me make gobi paratha for David, a fulfilling a rather old promise.

Hiked in Wild River and St. Croix State Parks with Raphael.

Gone to Pike Island with Eric.

Cursed the book a lot. I had better get back to this, as the deadline for Volume 1 approaches and I still have no title. My editor may yet be sorry that she made a CERTAIN ALLEGEDLY HUMOROUS REMARK ABOUT WHAT I SHOULD CALL BOTH VOLUMES. I mumble darkly and return to my toil.

I do read LJ and do think about all of you.

Pamela

Comments

[shadowflyer.livejournal.com]

Good lord...a library, a Unicorn, or an emotional situation, you can't tell which?

You're not writing an Amber novel, are you?!

:-P

[pameladean]

Nope.

Embrace the power of "and".

P.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

One is curious what the CERTAIN ALLEGEDLY HUMOROUS REMARK ABOUT WHAT YOU SHOULD CALL BOTH VOLUMES was.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Bowling for Unicorns?

[guppiecat]

I thing you should name the first one "Going" and the second one "North".

Failing that, you should call them "Going Northeast" and "Going Northwest", so you wind up in the same place at the end. :)

[sdn.livejournal.com]

in fact, your first suggestion was what i said.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You are clever.

How about calling it Unicorns and Libraries. Then you could call the other half Libraries and Unicorns. And, for bonus extra points I could call my untitled thing Libraries and Fairies!

[pameladean]

I am terribly tempted, but the confusion sown amongst bookstore clerks and indeed readers is hideous to contemplate. I do quite like Libraries and Fairies, though.

P.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

" It was good for my writing and my brain, but dealt a number of emotional and intellectual blows that I'm still wrestling with."

I'm very, very sorry for that. Cons should be, if not actually restful, safe places.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

Cons should be, if not actually restful, safe places.

i'm just guessing you didn't go to wiscon this year.

(pictures of several wiscon members ended up on a particularly horrible website, with accompanying text mocking them.)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i have checked around my household, and consensus is that you should call it "tales of gaptooth whitebeard, queen of all the pirates". she also says that if that's not what the book is actually about, you should just hurry up and rewrite it, then.

;)

[pameladean]

I can't do that, but I could put that book in the library. With permission from Her Arrrfulness, of course.

P.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

Cursed the book a lot. I had better get back to this, as the deadline for Volume 1 approaches and I still have no title. My editor may yet be sorry that she made a CERTAIN ALLEGEDLY HUMOROUS REMARK ABOUT WHAT I SHOULD CALL BOTH VOLUMES. I mumble darkly and return to my toil.

::cracks up laughing::

[pameladean]

You laugh now, but -- well, actually, you'll probably laugh later, too.

P.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I am sorry to hear about the emotional and intellectual blows, and that the book is giving you fits. Thinking of you, and hoping everything gets easier and better.

[pameladean]

Aw, thanks. The fits are par for the course, really. I just like to complain a little sometimes.

P.

[lcohen]

i think about you, too. it will take form.

gobi paratha sounds yummy.

*hugs*

[pameladean]

It's glorious. But very labor-intensive.

P.

Tis backed like a unicorn...

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted - if rather envious - to hear about the dragonflies. Especially, she adds in particularly Eeeyoreish tones, as this is the time of year when winged ants start swarming out of cracks in the London pavement.

Re: Tis backed like a unicorn...

[pameladean]

I hope you got some dragonflies while you were here! It was high season for them then.

They're dwindling now and we have a lot of flies, some of which bite. Luckily, their season is not long.

P.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I have discovered that the Union League makes a splendid vegan entree at their dining room. Four little places of wonderfulness.

[pameladean]

Wow, I'm impressed. Splendid vegetarian entrees are not unheard of, but vegan ones are much rarer. What is in it?

P.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Titles have always been my Worst Thing in writing. I don't write fiction (well, I did once, for a college class, and as I recall, I had more trouble with the title than with the story), but poems, essays, papers, LJ posts--my mind just doesn't think In Titles, apparently.

[pameladean]

No, neither does mine. I had the same problem with papers and essasy, but there is more of a formula for those, at least in English literature. It's easy to make fun of, but better than a blank space at the top of the page.

I'm glad it isn't just me.

P.

Possible titles

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The Last Unicorn of Summer

Unicorn in the Sea of Time for the first one. Followed by Unicorn in the Sea of Newsweek

Gelatin of the Gods

Re: Possible titles

[pameladean]

Aaack. Nine Princes in Unicorn. God Unicorn of Dune. Heellllppp!

P.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Sorry about fourth Street. If it hit you hard, glad I didn't go--I envision a salted slug.

[pameladean]

I don't think that it would have hit a new person like that. It was a really fine convention; I just hadn't worked through what some of my reactions might be.

P.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Well, if nothing else, you can go solve the sock problem.

K.

[pameladean]

Um, um, I live by the airport. (Things go over my head.) The only sock problem I know about is where they go when the dryer eats them.

P.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Waugh--I wish Fourth Street had been perfect for you, and hope it was Good Enough. (I mostly thought it was too damned short!, but what can you do?)

If you call the first book Going North, the title of the second could have a parallel/contrasting sort of structure: two words, the first a gerund again, but one that's not about moving. Like, say, keeping or watching or holding.

(Just, you know, a mumbley thought, without having read the material in question, so, hey, what do I know?)

May it go well, and briskly--I want to read it!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that, not that I've read it, either. Going North and Keeping Pace? Going North and Standing Still? Going North and Facing South? Going North and Turning Back? Going North and Hiding Title?

[kightp.livejournal.com]

*waves* at the author's retreating back.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I can certainly relate to the depression that can occur after going to a con and having your expectations fall short of reality.

I could write entire LJ posts on this very topic. Why I could even write a story or two about this, but alas I've found other things to do.

[pameladean]

No, the reality was splendid. I guess I had better update the entry to clarify. It was the inside of my head that was odd.

You should write your stories! Nobody else can.

P.

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

an abstract shape that might be a library, or a unicorn, or an emotional situation.

And a Bruce Springsteen reference! He has the answers to everything.

[pameladean]

Hee, I enjoyed doing that. I'm a very new Springsteen fan, having been introducted to his work only a few weeks ago.

P.

[tunxeh.livejournal.com]

in an abstract shape that might be a library, or a unicorn, or an emotional situation

Methinks it is like a weasel.

Which is to say, I'm sure you and your editor know best about these sort of things, but I'll be very happy to see it once it comes out no matter what length it is.

[pameladean]

My editor's only expressed concern about length is that it is better if the spine of the paperback doesn't crack the first time one opens it. But I'm glad to have people awaiting a long book, because this is certainly that.

P.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

We had lovely dragonflies (in various attitudes of copulation) out at Egg Lake last weekend. I counted three kinds for sure, so I don't doubt you are well ahead, but they were very pleasing.

[pameladean]

I love their attitudes of copulation! Some of them are heart-shaped. It just cracks me up.

Even one kind of dragonfly is pleasing. Three is very aesthetic. Itasca is particularly rich in dragonflies because it has a great deal of both still and standing water. That's why we go there.

P.

[carbonel]

I don't have any good ideas, but it occurs to me that something with "waltzing" in one of the titles might be apropros.

[(Anonymous)]

Would "Among the Cedars" be too Audenesque for the second volume?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Bruce Springsteen?

Just wonderin'.

TK