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Wed, 09 Mar 2005
I've been quiet for the past week for a variety of reasons -- the biggest of which is my next SF novel, Accelerando.
ACCELERANDO is the longest writing project I've yet undertaken, insofar as it took roughly five and a half years to come up with the first draft. It originally germinated as a short story back in the summer of 1999 -- a story called "Lobsters". "Lobsters" ended up being published in Asimov's SF Magazine, and even before it was in print I knew that the ending begged a question, and demanded an answer in the form of a sequel. Midway through the sequel a monstrously ambitious idea for a thematic series grabbed me bythe nose with its pincers and refused to let go: a trilogy of trilogies of novelettes, each trilogy covering a successive generation of the same family, tracing their experiences as they lived through (in the words of the fake Chinese proverb) a century of Interesting Times.
Anyway, the whole series took five years to write. It was hard work; at one point, in order to give myself an excuse for not grappling with one particular story I took time out to write a big fat fantasy novel. Then, having finished the stories, came the hard part -- splicing them together into something resembling an actual novel, rather than a series of incidents flying together in loose formation.
I have a confession to make: I'm rubbish at proof-reading. I know this from bitter experience, having had a job as a technical author during the course of which my editor (and line manager) tried to turn me into a proof-reader. It didn't work. I miss stuff. My spelling is erratic at best, and I don't notice spelling mistakes that I make. My eyes see what they expect to see, not what's on the page. Sitting on my desk right now is the 400-page galley proof of what is, if not my life's work, then certainly my most significant piece of work to date. So naturally I cheat -- I pay a professional sub-editor and proof-reader to go over some of my galleys. This doesn't discharge me from the burden of doing it myself, but it does ensure that the spelling mistakes mostly get picked up, and it flags a lot of other stuff for my attention that I might otherwise have missed. The publishers also proof-read the galleys, but what we find is ... well, all I can say is, the more eyeballs that examine a book, the more errors they find. I've been bitten by obvious doubled words in novels that had been proofed by myself, the commissioning editor, a copy editor, and two proofreaders -- there's a direct analogy here with Linus Torvald's aphorism about free software, "with enough eyeballs all bugs are discovered".
So I'm now going to shut up for a few days while I plough through 400 pages of ACCELERANDO. And hopefully when I finish I'll have enough energy left over to jot down some notes about the book that Gardner Dozois described as "one of the most dazzling feats of sustained imagination in science fiction history". (Gulp. Does he mean me?)
posted at: 18:13 | path: /writing | permanent link to this entryspecials:
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!)
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)
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Via Amazon.co.uk (HC)
Singularity Sky- Via Amazon.com (US HC)
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Via Amazon.com (US ebook)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC)
Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB)
Toast- Via Amazon.com
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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)
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