Friday, April 08, 2005
Thank you very, very frelling much, Poppy. I love you like a brother, but now, because you went and twisted my arm, and because I have enough guilt already I must admit, before all these good people, that last night I went and fell off the wagon. Well, okay, truthfully, you only actually twisted my arm, literally, to get me to have that second cosmopolitan. The meat was a weakness of my own sorry "soul," and I know it. Don't worry. I'm paying the price. Last night I dreamt I was accepting a Hugo award but couldn't give an acceptance speech for the glazed apple stuffed in my mouth. Today, I am back on the wagon. Oh, and it's not that the restaurant in question, Rathbun's, didn't have lots of good veggie options. It most certainly did. I was just a bad, bad nixar. Sigh. Hello, my name is Nar'eth, and I love meat.
For a less pathetic review of the dinner, you'll have to read Poppy's blog (the link above, you dullards).
As for work, I didn't write yesterday. But there was plenty else to keep me busy. Despite the best efforts of my agent, Penguin insists that they will publish no more than 150K words worth of Daughter of Hounds. And since I suspect it will be quite a bit lengthier than that, I can pretty much promise that the Subterranean Press edition will be longer ("unexpurgated," as they say) than the trade paperback. I told my editor this. They say they understand, and understand too that it will bestow a marketplace advantage upon the subpress edition, but if they go over 150K words, the trade paperback will cost book buyers more than $14, becasue of printing costs, and they're afraid to price my books higher than $14. So, there you go. I will write my book as it needs to be written, then remove however much must be removed for Penguin to get in under the 150K-word wire, and the whole thing will go to subpress. In the end, this is all about sales figures and return rates and, frankly, I'm sick nigh unto puking death of publishing. But, to quote the very wise Sam Gamgee, there's nothing for it.
In better news, I had a very good long talk with my editor at Marvel. With luck, I can spill the beans in another week or two.
Today, I have to send the first four vignettes for Frog Toes and Tentacles to Vince Locke, so he can begin work on the illustrations. And I have to get back to Chapter Four. And there's some publicity stuff for Penguin I have to attend to (to which I have to attend, whatever).
Hopefully, I'll have a little time this weekend to work on the pterosaur paper, and the Prophecy extras for Nebari.net. We shall see.
11:36 AM
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