Today I got my hands on the page proofs for Angel Stations. So I looked through the pages, looked at my name at the top of the page, the name of the book on the frontispiece ...
... looked at my name and the name of the book again, and thought, hmm.
Not sure about that font.
It's a bit weird seeing my story laid out all proper book-like and all, even as a series of laserprints. I have to read through it now and find all the horrid spelling mistakes and inaccuracies I will undoubtedly miss due to my having long become blind to the words. I haven't seen any cover art yet - that's still in the future, perhaps in the next couple of months.
The fourth draft of Against Gravity blazes ahead. Somebody told me they thought the title was a bit anaemic - bland. I didn't think so: I thought it sounded sort of classy. I suggested 'Labrats'. He said, maybe. But I think I still prefer Against Gravity. Still, name changes are always worth thinking about. I read somewhere that Tricia Sullivan's new novel Maul was originally going to be titled Y: A Chromosome. I prefer Maul.
In a sense, the fourth draft has stopped for the moment. What I'm actually doing is writing down a very detailed description of absolutely everything that happens in the book. This is worthwhile, as when I did it for Angel Stations I realised at a relatively late point that the same scene repeated itself twice, with marginally different wording. Quelle horreur! This way, I know exactly where everyone is, when, and what they're saying to each other.
The other I'm finding useful on this draft is a different way of making notes. Instead of scribbling them down or typing them up in a separate document, I'm inserting them directly into the text in brackets and in bold (like this). So that way while I'm writing I can pick myself up on any even potential serious errors that might occur (did I say this twenty pages ago, and why has this character just changed sex?).
You get the idea.
I was going to go through to Edinburgh this Friday to see the Writer's Bloc do a Halloween reading, but it turns out it wasn't actually on Halloween, as I'd been informed, but a couple of days before, which I hadn't been informed of. I know, I've checked. Dammit. I was looking forward to that, too. Well, next time, I guess ... or maybe in the next life, at this rate ...
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