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ann_leckieIt's weird what our minds get up to. Right now I'm mired in revisions to Ancillary Justice, hence the long silence, and the backlog of Podcastle and GigaNotoSaurus slush (sorry, everyone, I swear I'll get to you as soon as I turn this puppy in!). And though none of my editors' notes (I have two editors! A US one and a British one!) need particularly large changes, they many of them require a fair amount of close thought. Mostly they're expositional things, and/or things I've implied but not stated and aren't necessarily clear to all readers. I may have learned a few too many tricks from Nand' Cherryh--fellow fans, I'm sure you know the sort of thing I mean.
But some of the expositional stuff, it's weird. I mean, weird what I was reluctant to just come out and say.
AJ is, as I've said, a pretty unabashed old-school space opera. Like most old-school space operas, it's heavily furnished with stuff I found in the Sufficiently Advanced Technologies spring catalog. (You know the jingle! It's indistinguishable....buh buh buh...from magic!) I knew from the start that I'd ordered a lot from them--hell, they sent me a Christmas card last year, and every couple of months I get, say, a sample pack of ftl drives or something in the mail. Regular customer, you know? But looking so closely over this manuscript, for what has to be the millionth time (I think I can recite chapter twenty in my sleep--I probably do and Mr Leckie just isn't telling me about it because he's understanding), it's jumping out at me. Holy crap, look at all this! I went nuts with my ordering. Five or six Hyperspace Gate Economy Packs ("great for tying together a galactic empire, or just making interstellar travel convenient. Fully adjustable lengths, including "instantaneous" setting."). Standard Artificial Gravity, STL and FTL ships. ("Don't forget the batteries! Our patented Invisipower(TM) system is compatible with all of our products, and is endlessly customizable, for an energy source that's exactly as affordable, portable, and convenient as your narrative demands!")
And I thought I was pretty straightforward about that. I mean, this book is what it is, right? And I've never tried to pretend it was anything even close to hard SF. So when I needed impenetrable armor, I flipped to the "Armor, Impenetrable" section of the catalog, looked through the "Armor, Impenetrable--Unobtanium and Nonexistium" and after pondering various customization possibilities, paged over to "Armor, Impenetrable--personal force fields" and placed an order for that instead.
And then I spent the entire novel being coy about that. I've got several notes that are all more or less, "I still don’t understand the armor," and I’m thinking, "What's to understand? It's a standard order from SAT, customized a bit." And then realizing I hadn't said that, and realizing that I had, in fact, avoided saying it, when I ought to have just said it. And that was just foolish of me, and utterly inexplicable. And when I realized that, I also realized that I still didn't want to just say that. I mean, how weird is that? Why would that one bug me, but not the other things? I have no idea. It's just odd.
I fixed that. It was pretty easy to fix once I saw what I needed to do. Most of the things are like that. But I'm looking so close at all of this that right now I can only see the scaffolding--the SAT invoices and the joins where I welded things together and the shims I shoved underneath things to make everything level. It's all looking very awkward and unlovely, and I have to stop and remind myself that it didn't seem awkward and unlovely to the people who are paying good money for it.
And in fact, I should be enjoying this. Honestly, I need to take a step back and remember that I went to a great deal of effort to make exactly this happen, and I lucked out big time and it's actually happening and OMG it's fucking awesome. I mean, of all the jobs I could have, I lucked into this one! How fabulous is that? Pretty freaking fabulous, if you want to know.
Today, though, my brain feels like I've been slamming it repeatedly against a brick wall, and I'm not sure how well I actually understand English. Or, you know, anything at all.
But some of the expositional stuff, it's weird. I mean, weird what I was reluctant to just come out and say.
AJ is, as I've said, a pretty unabashed old-school space opera. Like most old-school space operas, it's heavily furnished with stuff I found in the Sufficiently Advanced Technologies spring catalog. (You know the jingle! It's indistinguishable....buh buh buh...from magic!) I knew from the start that I'd ordered a lot from them--hell, they sent me a Christmas card last year, and every couple of months I get, say, a sample pack of ftl drives or something in the mail. Regular customer, you know? But looking so closely over this manuscript, for what has to be the millionth time (I think I can recite chapter twenty in my sleep--I probably do and Mr Leckie just isn't telling me about it because he's understanding), it's jumping out at me. Holy crap, look at all this! I went nuts with my ordering. Five or six Hyperspace Gate Economy Packs ("great for tying together a galactic empire, or just making interstellar travel convenient. Fully adjustable lengths, including "instantaneous" setting."). Standard Artificial Gravity, STL and FTL ships. ("Don't forget the batteries! Our patented Invisipower(TM) system is compatible with all of our products, and is endlessly customizable, for an energy source that's exactly as affordable, portable, and convenient as your narrative demands!")
And I thought I was pretty straightforward about that. I mean, this book is what it is, right? And I've never tried to pretend it was anything even close to hard SF. So when I needed impenetrable armor, I flipped to the "Armor, Impenetrable" section of the catalog, looked through the "Armor, Impenetrable--Unobtanium and Nonexistium" and after pondering various customization possibilities, paged over to "Armor, Impenetrable--personal force fields" and placed an order for that instead.
And then I spent the entire novel being coy about that. I've got several notes that are all more or less, "I still don’t understand the armor," and I’m thinking, "What's to understand? It's a standard order from SAT, customized a bit." And then realizing I hadn't said that, and realizing that I had, in fact, avoided saying it, when I ought to have just said it. And that was just foolish of me, and utterly inexplicable. And when I realized that, I also realized that I still didn't want to just say that. I mean, how weird is that? Why would that one bug me, but not the other things? I have no idea. It's just odd.
I fixed that. It was pretty easy to fix once I saw what I needed to do. Most of the things are like that. But I'm looking so close at all of this that right now I can only see the scaffolding--the SAT invoices and the joins where I welded things together and the shims I shoved underneath things to make everything level. It's all looking very awkward and unlovely, and I have to stop and remind myself that it didn't seem awkward and unlovely to the people who are paying good money for it.
And in fact, I should be enjoying this. Honestly, I need to take a step back and remember that I went to a great deal of effort to make exactly this happen, and I lucked out big time and it's actually happening and OMG it's fucking awesome. I mean, of all the jobs I could have, I lucked into this one! How fabulous is that? Pretty freaking fabulous, if you want to know.
Today, though, my brain feels like I've been slamming it repeatedly against a brick wall, and I'm not sure how well I actually understand English. Or, you know, anything at all.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 12:11 am (UTC)Edited to add--and you're right, when people order the kits from SAT and don't do much customization, you get things that don't make sense. Tech that always works perfectly and never fails, to the detriment of worldbuilding and story both. I tend to find that not entirely satisfying, and hope to have avoided mostly avoided that here.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:47 pm (UTC)But there are people who have worked just as long and just as hard--maybe more, on both counts--and not gotten this far. And that bit is totally luck.
But either way. There's lots to enjoy and it's good to remember that. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:50 pm (UTC)I like reading about those things, too. If nothing else, when something happens to me I can say, "Oh, [popular author] had that happen to her, too, so it's normal. It's not something that's happening to me because I suck!" Because, you know, the "I suck" voice is always eager to jump on stuff like that.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 11:50 am (UTC)That sounds about normal for this stage of revisions.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:53 pm (UTC)Deep breath. I know. It's just where I'm standing right now.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 02:08 pm (UTC)Related story: When I got the galleys for my first book to review, I had a complete melt-down. It was HORRIBLE AWFUL DRECK and Tor was definitely going to cancel the book before anyone saw this mess. I buckled down and reviewed the thing, but it was hard. Two years later, as I reviewed the mmp galleys for that same book, I realized, Hey, this isn't bad. In fact, I like this book.
Sometimes it's a matter of time and distance from the work.