Editing etc

[erastes]

I cannot believe how much better I feel today. It’s like magic; over the past 3-4 days I’ve been dragging myself around, literally holding onto the furniture to stop collapsing – and today I’m walking almost like a human being. Well, ok a human weeble hybrid, at least.

I’ve just had an unpleasant email from an esmeralda greene. I don’t know what I ever did to upset her, seeing as I’ve never heard of her in my life. Thank you so much!

Started on the edits for Muffled Drum. I don’t have line edits yet, the editor has given me an outline of the sections that she thinks need fleshing out, concepts that need a little more explanation, that kind of thing. She’s dead right, and in fact while I was writing it I knew that a romance publisher would have problems with some of the book. I’d sort of swept stuff under the carpet, and that’s not good writing, it’s lazy.

Why am I surprised! LOL. I heard a quote from someone yesterday—can’t remember who it was, Someone like Tennyson or suchlike -  but they said if they had a set figure of money, (quite low) they would be happy to loaf for the rest of their lives. I grok this. Loafing is my default state. I used to be able to spend my entire holidays from work lying on the floor at home, on my own and completely content. Time enough for Loaf. Put it on my tombstone.

I’m also going to rework Chiaroscuro and submit it for Carina’s decision. The rights from Aspen Mountain Press run out in January, and I’ve never really been satisfied with the story as it stands. It was supposed to be a novel, but I lost inspiration with it after 7k or so—but when the Aspen anthology call came along for vampires, I fleshed it out to a small novella and sent it off. I’d like to push it up to 20k perhaps (it’s 13k at the present, and too small for Carina) and see if that makes the story gel a little better. I can see a repeat of “you need to explain this a little more” if I were to let it go as it was, even if I add the 3k it needs to be the minimum for their submission process. I would like to revamp it – ‘scuse the pun! – and push it more towards the plotline I had originally planned. We’ll see. It would be good to get it into a larger pond.

It’s odd though, re-reading stuff. I almost never re-read anything once it’s been published, but I read part of Chiaroscuro yesterday and it seemed as if it had been written by someone else. There are parts in it that I have absolutely no memory of. Odd.

 

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Comments

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

>1: "Mother's Milk" - Sexy young mother Dorothy and her teenaged helpmate Janey explore lesbian sex and the erotic potential of Dorothy's milk-filled breasts.
2: "Mounted" - Laura and Amy share a strange and taboo sexual preference, but there are unexpected developments when they decide to swap their canine sex partners.

From Esmeralda Greene's self-published e-book page at Amazon.


If you did something to offend this person, it must have been serious! Wow! Or should I say Bow Wow Wow!

::shudder::

[erastes.livejournal.com]

out of the blue she sent me an email saying I should shoot the EAA in the head because it was a waste of space (polite paraphrasing) - it's baffling.

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

Maybe she was turned down for admission at some point?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I doubt it - I've never denied anyone unless they weren't published. *shrugs* I'll just forget about it, not worth worrying about.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Also, from her Amazon page:

Esmeralda Greene is an erotica writer dedicated to the principle that erotic fiction can be red-hot raunchy while also being written with intelligence, elegance and style.

Oh, yeah. I can TOTALLY see the intelligence and elegance in dog-fucking. *rolls eyes*

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

And then there's the incest + voyeurism + horse DP.

I think she's trying to set a record for greatest number of taboos in a single story.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Good lord.

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

Well if I'd seen what she had published and been running EAA I'd have rejected her as she seems to have hit all the major publisher taboos.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Well, everybody likes to be good at something and if you aim low enough, you're likely to succeed.

Bill Clinton once said that he was proud of having some people consider him an enemy...

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

You seem to have good taste in the people you offend. :-)

Actually that odd, did I really write this, feeling is one reason I like to set something aside for a couple of months after I finish it before I try to do edits. It helps to have a little distance to see what needs changing. Sometimes I can almost look at it as if it had been written by someone else.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

She did reply and said she didn't mean to be nasty to ME, but attacking an association--as far as she was concerned, I was the director of, with no provocation - well I don't know how else I was supposed to take it.

I was going to reply to her again, but frankly, life is too short.

Yes, that whole "who wrote this?" bit is lovely - when it's good, anyway. LOL

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Very glad to hear you're you're on the mend. This is horrible weather to deal with if one is fit. It must be even worst when poorly. *hugs*

Your comments on the process of publishing are always interesting. I haven't got Chiaroscuro yet. I'll wait now to 'see the director's cut'. :)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I think that's one story that really could do with being longer. It always felt like the opening chapter of something more. go for it!