Busy Work

Gena Showlater’s recent post really struck a chord for me, though I dont’ have anywhere near her level of work. Poor girl is finishing one manuscript and revising three others, and let’s not forget her publicity and, gosh, family.

I don’t have family, just Sailor Boy, but between the job and the revisions, I still feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

So a month ago, I got an ELEVEN PAGE REVISION LETTER from my grumblegrumble lovely editor (nah, really, love ya, Ker). It kicked my ass for a while, and then I fought back and made (most of) the changes and kicked its ass right back and added 5000 words to my manuscript and sent it back. Last weekend, I got it back and have since set about fixing the things that weren’t fixed in the first round. After that, it’s all about the copyediting. And then the proofing. And then the publicity.

Kerri says she’s read the book 10 times already. And we’re still catching stuff. For instance, last night I noticed I accidentally gave two minor characters the same last name. Oops. (Okay, I had a moment where I wondered if they were secretly brother and sister. Like, maybe it could be a thing. An apocryphal fanfic-inspiring thing.

Totally off-topic, but that whole same-last-name thing last night inspired a whole train of thought wherein I wondered how good a job Obi-Wan Kenobi et al. was doing with “hiding” Luke when they went ahead and called him LUKE SKYWALKER. Dude, is Skywalker the “Smith” of long ago in a galaxy far, far away? Is it so common that nobody would have noticed that there was some snot-nosed kid running around Tatooine with the same last name as the Crown Prince of the frickin’ galaxy? At least with Leia, they pretended she was that Organa guy’s kid. Which of course, merely forwards my theory that Leia is really the powerful one of those two. And anyway, yeah, Luke was totally right with the whole “Ben should have told me,” thing. Because, dude, knowledge is power, and at least he should know why the big scary guy in black is stalking him all over the galaxy. And how is it that not everyone knows where this individual came from? How is it that Han Solo isn’t all, “Skywalker, huh? Huh, isn’t that the birth name of that freaky Darth Vader dude? I think I learned that in early Imperial History class in GRADE SCHOOL.” At the very least, little Miss leader-of-the-rebellion Leia should have known it. Right after he says, “I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to save you,” she should have said, “Wait, that’s Darth Vader’s name. He just tortured me and blew up my planet. You think I’m going anywhere with you?” Ahem. Sorry, geek tangent. So many ways the later movies ruined the earlier ones.

And if the revisions work isn’t enough, I have to visit the random house page at least five times a dat to type in my name. I also have to spend an hour staring at my cover and envisioning what it will look like wrapped around a book. (Oh, yeah. Got my cover. Will be posting it soon. Tease tease tease.) And then there the whole work, commute, sleep, eat, watch LOST thing. That takes up some time.

So it’s little wonder that I haven’t been able to work on any new proposals. And I have three that I’m just DYING to get into. Three. Yeah, I think my muse has a sadistic streak. Plus there’s that whole sequel thing due next summer. And let’s not forget my promotional plan.

Sigh. Not enough hours in the day. Especially when I spend some of it thinking about plot holes in Star Wars.