How this works

June 1st, 2007

The temptation is to dig into the files and start tossing things up- the more, the better, right?  Problem is, a lot of what I have is literally ‘filed away,’ as in typed pages or spiral notebooks full of scribbling sitting in drawers in a filing cabinet. I’ll take one out, look at it, and realize that twenty or thirty years ago most of what I wrote was border-line porn and/or was really, really bad. The sleeping editor within starts coughing and snorting his way to wakefulness and then what should be a quick job of transcription becomes a day or three of rewriting.

 

Rewriting isn’t such a bad thing; lord knows I did enough of that in the novel, but when I’m done with one of these old stories the result is just not what it should be. The original may have sucked, but it had something lost in the rewrite. Add to this the fact that much of what I have is unfinished (a common problem I’m told, and one that separates Authors from people who wish they were authors) and you can see where I might decide not to just pump out 80,000 words of assorted drek all at once.

 

No, I’ll dole out the drek in judicious spoonfuls, starting with what follows this post.