The new ending that used to be somewhere else entirely has been grafted onto the old one,\u00a0 and though it looks a little strange now (“What is that crocodile head doing on that sheep?” the observer might ask) it’s all coming together.\u00a0 Once I saw the legs off the sheep, stretch it lengthways, paint the fleece brown and green, and attach an artificial croc tail made out of Naugahyde ™ it’s going to be fine.\u00a0 (I’m joking.\u00a0 Promise!\u00a0 It’s late on Friday night after a week of working on how to do this.\u00a0 When the revision’s done there will be no evidence of crocodile head, sheep, Naugahyde ™, stitches, or paint.)<\/p>\n
I can’t be much more specific without spoilering the entire book, but I will say that Editor was 100% correct in what was wrong with the old ending.\u00a0\u00a0 It goes back to a fundamental of storytelling…if the story promises to be about a romance, then the end of the book has to let you know if\u00a0 the partners partner or split up.\u00a0 If the story promises to be about solving a mystery, then the mystery should be solved.\u00a0 For very long works (more than one volume, for instance–hint, hint)\u00a0 all doesn’t have to be revealed–shouldn’t be revealed–in the first volume, but the reader has to be reassured that it will be.\u00a0 I know that.\u00a0 But I don’t always see what I haven’t done, when I’m focused on what I have done.\u00a0 Hence, editors.<\/p>\n
Some of the week was spent actually taking a chunk from this draft and a chunk from that,\u00a0 putting them in, moving them around.\u00a0 Some was spent staring out the window, or up at the ceiling, and thinking.\u00a0 OK, this bit is now better, what should come next?\u00a0\u00a0 Back up two chapters, read straight through to the…oh.\u00a0 Rough spot.\u00a0\u00a0 Cut it out?\u00a0 Sand it down?\u00a0\u00a0 Do that fancy woodworking thing with an angled joint?\u00a0 Over and over and over again.\u00a0\u00a0 Interspersed with thinking about the other things that need doing in the book to make everything fit.\u00a0 What if I tinkered with this?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Or that?\u00a0\u00a0 How can this be made clear without being too obvious?\u00a0\u00a0 And some–the minority part–was involved with the next book (which had already been started and had its own momentum it didn’t want interrupted) and thinking ahead to how the changes in Cold Welcome<\/em> would require changes in the plan for Unnamed New Thing.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, spring is seriously underway here: redbuds and elbowbush and Mexican plum blooming, oaks throwing golden pollen, the little old-fashioned white iris blooming, viburnum and scarlet buckeye leafing out and showing flower buds, the yard full of birds–the winter residents fattening up for the trip north, the local residents singing nesting songs, and any day now we’ll hear the long-haul big migrants–the waterfowl and shorebirds–calling from far overhead.\u00a0 Pastures showing the first hints that green might be in our future.\u00a0 Luckily, I’m still down enough with the tail end of bronchitis that it’s not as hard as usual to resist the lure of spring outside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new ending that used to be somewhere else entirely has been grafted onto the old one,\u00a0 and though it looks a little strange now (“What is that crocodile head doing on that sheep?” the observer might ask) it’s all coming together.\u00a0 Once I saw the legs off the sheep, stretch it lengthways, paint the Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}