Ceallaigh's Blog
Upon learning I was about to undertake a somewhat complex revision process, my GEH (short for Genius Engineer Husband) rises to his feet, points his slide rule in the air and proclaims, "I can make a spreadsheet for that!"
And so he did.
It's a fine creation consisting of a page for each chapter plus one for the template and one for calculating how close I am to completion. I spent the day today gathering my notes, his notes and my beta reader's notes into an outline and then breaking that into overall, section and chapter edits. Afterward, I plugged them into the spreadsheet, and now all I have to do is go from chapter to chapter ticking each item off as I address it.
When there are Casbahs which need rocking, the GEH arrives, and he rocks them.
Bi-la kaifa.
Last night, I finally completed section edits for Part III of TWSP. I still hope to get some planning done for whole-novel edits this evening using a very fine spreadsheet Sean created for that purpose. Tomorrow I'm occupied with a number of errands, but I'll begin the final pass through the book on Tuesday and start polishing a synopsis. I hope plan to have it polished and ready to send out by the end of the calendar year.
Friday, October 28th
I left late on Friday in a rush after dashing madly about town on last-minute errands, including a stop at Giant Robot Comics, where Darryl wrapped my nephew's birthday gift in the pages of a comic book. Singularly geekish and very, very cool. Happily, my rental car company interpreted 'I need a car with an iPod jack' to mean 'I need a car that Catwoman might use to flee from Batman'. So I left Halifax in a Dodge Charger slightly larger than some bedrooms I've inhabited with an Alpine stereo system that made Nick Podehl sound like he might be reading The Name of the Wind from the passenger seat. Fine car, fine novel, gorgeous day for a drive. I could do worse. I arrived in Milford, Maine around 10:30 and tumbled onto the Bernards' couch around 11:00 for a few hours of shut-eye.
I've made it home and plan to write a post about Quebec City soon, but for now (and until after I settle in) here's a pile of miscellaneous news I didn't feel like posting via iPad.
Professional News
My first quarterly newsletter went out to subscribers on October 31st. You can read it here, and you can subscribe by visiting my web site at csmaccath.com.
In other news, I've come away from my holiday with a powerful sense of having let my writing career and my home suffer in the last month for the sake of other things. It's my intention to remedy that going forward by placing my writing career and my home at the front of my life rather than making time for them at the back. With this shift in priorities will come a shift in my available time, with apologies in advance to any people who might be affected by it.
I'm finding that the more worldbuilding I packed into my chapters, the better the prose tends to be upon revision. Chapters 14 & 16 were tough to write because they were so alien, so I assumed they'd be harder to revise. But it's the other way around. The harder the chapter was to draft, the easier it is to edit. Maybe I was paying better attention to the hard stuff, or something.
Greetings Everyone,
Welcome to Issue #1 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to www.csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Samhain 2011.
My poem entitled, "When I Arrived, This Is What She Said" is now available in the autumn issue of Goblin Fruit. Of interest, the sound backdrop of the piece contains part of a traditional Gàidhlig milling song I sang with friends at the An Cliath Clis milling frolic last spring. If you're interested, you can watch a video of the milling and listen to the song on YouTube.
I'm very happy with this piece; it brings together so much of what I love about Nova Scotia, and it's tucked in amongst some really gorgeous poetry. Go read the whole issue and listen to the poets read their work. You'll be glad you did.
I know where sirens come from.
Born in the foam of a green-water wave
to fold their lissome bodies over the rocks.
"See?" they sing, "There is no pain in this."
Turn away, lover of women, while you still can.
Wipe the salt from your lips before you taste it.
"Jeff V." of Lulu.com responded to my last correspondence with more of the same. Here's the relevant chunk of his correspondence and my reply:
Jeff V.: Please be reassured that Lulu holds no rights over the content you published and/or you retired. We will not distribute or use private, retired, or any content not made available for distribution within your account settings.
Me: You've already done this. That's why I wrote you to begin with. In fact, Google indexed the private work Lulu.com made available on its web site. Would you like to see my screen shots?
Jeff V.: If you use the Site after Lulu has posted a change to these terms on the Site, you are agreeing to be bound by that change.
Revised for accuracy on October 20, 2011.
So, I read my last blog post to my genius engineer husband, who had something of an epiphany when I finished.
Genius Engineer Husband: Can you revise the projects you have on the Lulu.com site?
Me: I think so.
Genius Engineer Husband: Why don't you replace the contents of those projects with your blog entries?
