Wednesday, May 07, 2003
It's been a weird morning. I spent a piece of it reading about Peter Reich and his father, Wilhelm Reich, and the younger Reich's A Book of Dreams, and Orgonon, and Orgone Energy, and Orgone accumulators, and UFOs, and cloudbusting, all following from a discussion of Kate Bush on my discussion boards. It's all left my head a little farther afield than usual.
Last night we finished with the Roc CEM. I thought it would take us four nights; it only took three. Now there's still the Subterranean Press version to be done, which has to be proofed against the Roc version (and vice versa). Doing two editions of this book is complicated, trying to see that the texts diverge in any no unintentional way. There will be small differences. For example, I'm rewriting little bits of the Roc edition to avoid capitalizing trademarked words in those cases when using caps would look absurd ("Sheetrock" always comes to mind first). The subpress edition will throw caution to the winds and print trademarked words as I wrote them, usually lowercased.
I know I've bitched a lot about the Roc CEM. I'll probably bitch about it a lot more before all is said an done. But I will say that this copyeditor is, for all the annoyances, probably the best I've ever had on a Roc book. She generally catches things that need catching, and her attempts to rewrite my prose are minimal. If only she didn't have it in her head that the Chicago Manual of Style has anything at all to do with fiction writing, then she'd probably be a dream. Such obsessive (and almost always arbitrary, and often illogical) standardization is all fine and good for newspapers, professional journals, non-fiction magazines, and the like, I suppose, but it is only a detriment to art. I have written what I have written the way I have written it for a reason. I couldn't give a rat's ass what the Manual of Style has to say to the contrary. It's not relevant. Fortunately, in most of these matters, I have veto power over changes made by the copyeditor. But it's a huge waste of time, having to put things back the way I meant them to be.
Much of yesterday was spent typing up old notes (1993) I'd made for a proposed sequel to The Five of Cups. These notes (along with other TFoC-related arcana) will be included with the lettered state of the Subterranean Press edition. The numbered state won't have it.
And while I'm on the subject of Subterranean Press, they're now taking orders for Low Red Moon, so you might want to drop by the website and preorder. The printing will be limited to 750 numbered copies, and 26 lettered. It will likely be the only hardcover edition of the novel. Also, I'm told Waycross should already be out; there's been an unexplained delay at the printers, which should be resolved shortly.
Last night we relisted a bunch of stuff for the Cat Crutches Auction. There's surely something there that you can't live without. And remember, I'll sign anything almost any way you wish it signed. There are exceptions, but they're few and far between. Just as long as everything I write conforms to the dictates of the Chicago Manual of Style, of course . . .
|
|
