Thursday, July 31, 2003
Ugh. Last night was another of mine and Spooky's Tomb Raider marathons, more than four hours and it was almost 4 a.m. when I finally got to bed. I'm sadly amazed at how the game can be so much more engaging than either of the films has been.
Anyway, yesterday was the rare sort of day when I actually did almost everything I said I was going to do. I wrote about 1,000 words worth of notes for Chapter Seven, which I will begin today. I finished up editing the notes for the Subterranean lettered of LRM, and we proofread Chapter Six start to finish. I didn't get to the research I needed to do, but that's hardly a surprise. This is such a peculiar book. I fear my editor may be at a loss. At least Publisher's Weekly won't be able to accuse it of being "conventional." And it appears it may indeed be only ten chapters. It was in my head more than usual yesterday. When we finally crawled off the bed last night, I was still babbling about the characters. That's a good sign. Had I been able to get my head that into the book a couple of months back, I'd be almost finished by now.
Obsession is the writer's friend. It's an anti-sin. It is the antithesis of Distraction.
I'm wondering whether or not this will be a less sorrowful novel than was LRM. I think there will be more triumph at the end, though many readers will still probably find great sadness there. I expect I will, as well. I'm a little sensitive on this issue. I have been ever since a reviewer in Fangoria complained that the ending of Silk was more sad than horrific (that's a paraphrase, but very close to what was said; I don't feel like digging out the review to quote it). He was correct, of course, but he reacted as though that were a bad thing, when it was, of course, exactly as I'd intended the ending to be received.
I am a great believer in the importance of authorial intent, though I know it's long been out of vogue with literary theorists. Most times, I have about as much use for literary theorists as I have for, say, artificial sweeteners. There is what I intended a book to convey and that is of the greatest significance. There will be other things there I didn't consciously intend, or intended not at all, and it's great when the reader gets those things as well, but they are secondary, tertiary, quarternary, etc.
Time to get to work now. The words will have their bloody way.
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