Sartorial

Random quote of the day:


"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

—Mark Twain, quoted in More Maxims of Mark, Merle Johnson, 1927



(Thank you, hominysnark. Hard to choose between Arthur Rackham, Milo Winter, and Edmund Dulac, but I chose the Dulac in your honor.)


( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

I know just how they feel

The need to go deep

I've just passed through the most painful part of the rewrite, the part where I actually had to rewrite some scenes rather than just prettify the language. The monkey poo scene is no more! Or, actually, only the poo-flinging part. I knew it was a weak spot in the manuscript so I wasn't unhappy to see it go, but I wanted to rewrite it in such a way as to avoid a cascading domino effect on the rest of the story. I think I accomplished that, and may even have added depth to the story as a result.

I also recognized a need to go deeper on some of the worldbuilding. It hadn't occurred to me until this rewrite that I left out some important information, so I've added that in—a couple of infodumps that will have to be edited. About a page-worth of material overall added here and there in the ms. I've also been mapping out territories beyond the boundaries of the places covered in the story. I started that process early on, abandoning it when I got caught up in this story, but that wasn't such a smart thing. Making the maps forces me to look more closely at the world, and even if I don't use those things in the current novel, they inform the subtext. That depth thing.

While I'm at it, I'm going to see if I can do something about the plethora of middle manuscript scenes of people standing around talking about the plot. That's been bugging me, too. And this post by Nathan Bransford only heightened that feeling. Some of my "discussion" scenes have good emotional conflict. Others I'm going to have to study with a jaundiced eye.

I wanted to hurry this book out the door, but I have to face the fact that I am not going to be able to do that. I still have a good opening 11 chapters, and a good ending, but if I don't do the hard work required to make that middle live up to the other parts of the book, I'm not going to be happy. I've been tormenting myself—because that's my favorite sport, apparently—that I am doing this just to avoid sending it out. But I've had time to digest that, too. To mull and sift and go deep into my own heart and psyche. This isn't about not wanting to send the book out. This is about making it the best book I can. I have been trying to ignore that part of the equation, but I can't. My deeper angels (demons?) won't let me get away with that indefinitely.

And that's as it should be.

I'm not unhappy about this. Figuring it all out has been liberating. This has been the book that didn't quite sit right in my gut. Now I know why, and now I know I can make it better.

A Rain of Angels




But where are the Zokutous of yesteryear?