Charlie's Diary

[ Site Index] [ Feedback ]

Mon, 04 Nov 2002 Woo-hoo Excuse, please, the lack of blogging today (Sunday): I just had a major fit of inspiration and, after writing 7000 words, am pleased to report that (a) my hands ache, and (b) the first draft of "The Iron Sunrise" is complete -- and sort of hangs together. I've been sweating bullets over this novel because it's the first time I've had to write a sequel to a book that's sold, with a deadline and a contract hanging over me. It's not ready to show around or send to my editor and agent yet: there's a bunch of polishing and bugfixing ahead. But it now has a story arc, a theme, and a structure that goddamn works, which means it now resembles a real novel instead of a bunch of random incidents strung together on the cutting-room floor. "The Iron Sunrise" has had a painful gestation. It's a sequel to my first novel, "Festival of Fools" (in the UK; "Singularity Sky" in the US). I began writing it in 1997, right after finishing the first draft of "Festival" stopping in 1998 when, in a fit of sanity, I realised it would be a good idea to sell the first novel first. (There is a very limited market for sequels to unpublished novels.) At that point it ran to 65,000 words, was half-finished, and was seriously broken-backed. In hindsight, I succumbed to what computer programmers call the second system effect; the second release of a piece of software is always bloated, overly laden with spurious features, and full of bugs due to the over-confidence of the designers. But it took me a while to figure this out for myself ... I got stuck into "The Iron Sunrise" in earnest this summer. I picked up the first draft, saw that It Was Not Good, ended up ditching all but 15,000 words, and started writing new stuff. But when I hit 80,000 words in August, and broke for a trip to ConJose, I realised it had gone off the rails again. 25,000 words of cuts later I had it back on course -- and I've finally nailed it down at 130,000 words, after some considerable sweating and worrying about driving it into the sand again. By the time it's on the editor's desk it will probably have grown to 140,000 words (there's an epilogue to write, and the bits that have to come out are outweighed by the bits that have to go in), so we're talking about a project that'll have taken 7 years and involved writing 210,000 words. (In contrast, the two novels I wrote before this one were both started much more recently, and lost far less material in the writing process. I think re-working old material is a little bit problematic ...) I think the only word that sums up how I feel right now is "ouch". Anyway, the worst is over. I now get to leave it on the shelf for at least a month before I start hacking on it again. And I am incredibly relieved. [ Discuss writing ] posted at: 00:37 | path: /misc | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

[ Site Index] [ Feedback ]

Powered by Blosxom!