Tuesday, September 30, 2003
I could have done better yesterday. Only 865 words on Chapter Eleven, frelling Chapter Eleven, and I know that those 865 words need to be heavily reworked today before I move on. I was actually suprised when, after dinner, I discovered that I'd only written 865 words. I'd guessed 1,200. The words came with that sort of difficulty yesterday. At this rate, completing the novel will require the rest of this week, leaving me only one week before the trip to New England, a fact which has me extremely stressed out. But I will not rush the ending. If it needs this much time, I have to give it this much time. Of course, as soon as I finish the epilogue, I have to rewrite the prologue, and fix a bunch of continuity problems throughout the ms. That'll take another day or two, at the very least. And I have a feeling I'll be polishing this book for months. It's going to be almost the same length as Low Red Moon, but it's scope is far more panoramic, which has created the need for more reworking and continuity policing.
We're having unusually cool weather for late September. Lows in the 40s the last couple of nights, and that's triggered the cryosphere, which will no doubt keep my feet in the deep freeze until sometime next May. "Oh, that long room with the red concrete floor will be perfect for an office!" I said, like a goddamned fool. I have a hate/love relationship with cold weather. On the one hand, it spawns a ferocious beauty, and that I love. On the other hand, it makes me miserable in almost every respect. Maybe that's the price of ferocious beauty. Unending misery. It makes more sense than most things.
Last night, Spooky and I watched The Man Who Fell To Earth.
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws," indeed. I suspect that I am.
An observation: if grown men are going to insist upon parading about in public in those hideous khaki shorts, they ought to have to keep their legs shaved or waxed. Really, I'm so sick of seeing curly black leg hair every time I go out. If women are expected to keep their legs bare, the same should be expected of the XY brigade, if, as I've said, they insist on those vile shorts. You may go now.
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