Friday, July 04, 2003
I only slept five hours and I'm very punchy. For example, I amost began this entry, "It's July 4th, the day Jesus discovered America." That's how punchy I am.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,212 words on Chapter Five and reached the end of the frelling thing. The chapters in MOA are running somewhat longer than the chapters in Low Red Moon, which I can only hope is not a sign that the book as a whole will also run longer. I fear the Fantasy Expansion Principle (FEP). The FEP explains the inability of authors of high fantasy not to take 800 pp. to tell a story that only requires 200. And while MOA isn't exactly high fantasy (I've glibbly described it as Alice in Wonderland meets Lovecraft meets The Stand), so far there has been a bridge troll, and a talking bird, and somewhere there's a pretty awful dragon lurking about. To date, there's no satisfactory explanation for FEP. Someone should allocate a few million to look into it. We might be spared the next Robert Jordan novel.
Also, Spooky and Jenny and I proofread chapters Seven and Eight of Low Red Moon. We're trying to work through the Subterranean Press proof at the same time now, trying to make the two match up as much as I want them to, and checking them against the CEM, and it's a bit of a nightmare. At one point, I told Spooky that she looked like an old lady with too many bingo cards. We didn't finish with Chapter Eight until sometime after midnight. The whole thing has to be back in NYC on July 9th, which means I need to get it in the mail on Monday, which means we have only this weekend to finish with the Roc edition. Which means that while all of you are watching fireworks and eating bar-b-que, I'll most likely be proofreading this manuscript.
I said something yesterday about commas and hyphens, didn't I? Never mind. What's the point. But there are times I wish English weren't such a mongerl language, and that the dickheads that do such things had never began trying to standardize it. All I ask for is either a) a grammatical system that is internally consistent or b) for people to leave me the frell alone about frelling commas and hyphens. I may soon revert to the rule of thumb regarding commas that I was taught as a child: Whenever you'd take a breath, insert a comma. At least it's consistent and there are no exceptions.
Okay. That's all. Go shoot off some illegal fireworks to commemorate the day in 1492 when Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone, and Jesus bought America from the Indians for three dollars.
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