Echoes in a Hollow Space

Proofread? Who needs to proofread? Besides, images generated by typo are so much more interesting.


The true word count for the rewrite of A Rain of Angels:

54,250 / 111,750 (48.5%)

Strange event of the day: So I'm in the cafeteria and a guy says, "I think you dropped your money." I look down and there's a severely wadded up bill on the ground, so wadded I couldn't even see the denomination. I'm pretty sure it isn't mine because my money is neatly folded in my pocket, but I pick it up, of course. I unfurl it and wow! It's a ten dollar bill. I check my pocket and my own ten is still there. "This isn't yours?" I ask the guy. "No." "It isn't mine, either." He laughs and looks a little disappointed. "It is now." He turns and walks away, as if wishing he hadn't been a nice guy and had grabbed it himself.

"Wow, found money!" I think, but immediately afterwards, as always happens these days when I find money, I think about a time I lost $15 that I desperately needed—it was all the money I had for the week. And I think about how desolate I was and I remember that finding money is a good thing, but always predicated on a bad thing happening to someone else. That always takes the glee off the moment. What if the person who lost that ten needed it as much as I needed that $15 way back when?

As it happens, I could really use that ten myself, so I'm trying not to be too big of a nerd about this and enjoy my good fortune. But I do think it's important to think of the other guy, too—in a karmically balancingly kind of way.

Irony of the day: Today is the birthday of the President of the United States and of Nancy Reagan. It is also the birthday of my friend, Lynn, who hates Bush with the heat of a thousand bonfires and likes Nancy only somewhat better. "What kind of weird cosmic projection is that all about?" she wonders.

Other irony of the day: This has been a point of much hilarity to all of us who know Lynn. This morning when NPR mentioned it was Dubya's birthday I laughed and said, "Ha ha! And Lynn's. Oh sh*t! I forgot to mail her birthday card!"

I don't share a birthday with anyone infamous, that I know of: Tommy LaSorda, Scott Baio, and Elizabeth Bear. Oh, and of course Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.

Cliché du jour: gore-encrusted claws (Don't worry, it didn't even survive the sub-first draft.)

Darling du jour: n/a - Nothing really floated in my moat.

Typo of note: his death's group wouldn't loosen

Words of the day: A miraculous (for me) 1250—the push to finish chapter 23. And ah, it's finished.

Socks of the day: Dark green with little white dots.

This is one of those days when I really feel the weight of the novel on top of me. I'm sure I'm repeating images and character bits; the prose becomes more and more laden with placeholder clichés and deadish dialogue tags because I'm just too tired to think of anything else right now.

That's why I actually like the rewrite process. It gives me a chance to have new skin. The first draft is for pushing through, the second is for scraping away the dead cells.

Unfortunate juxtaposition of headlines on Netscape News of the day:

• Keep work stress in check: 7 tips

• Wine bars uncork nightlife trend

Cliché du jour: Bedwyr rode grim-faced beside me

Darling du jour: In the torchlight his face wavered like the moon reflected in black water

I'm not even sure that makes sense, but I like it. At least until I read it again some months from now during the rewrites.

Typo of note: The cursing of the ne... which of course made me think of the knights of Monty Python fame...