Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Writing update

Macmillan emailed me the copy-edited version of Zero Point, along with a list of questions from the copy editor and also a request that I supply acknowledgements and a dedication. They want all these sorted and returned by the 31st which shouldn’t be a problem, though I will wait on the hard copy so I can sit down with paper and pen to work through it. It’s noticeable how, in the email version, they’re now using a marked-up PDF document and I reckon on that becoming the way things will be done in the future i.e. a saving will be made on printing and postage. I don’t suppose it will take me very long to get used to that.

As for the acknowledgements and dedication, they ask earlier on if I would like a couple of pages saved for them. I tend to say yes, even when I’m not sure who I might acknowledge or who or what I might dedicate the book to (and also be in danger of repeating myself) because I suspect they are a case of ‘use them or lose them’. I also feel that just going nah, I won’t bother, is a bit lazy.

So, Penny Royal is on 32,741 words and I’ll soon be abandoning it for a while to turn my attention to this editing. When I return to Penny Royal I’ll have to deal with a growing feeling of ‘time to introduce another character or twist’ – time in fact to do what Raymond Chandler did when he felt things needed ramping up. His approach was to walk in a man with a gun. My approach has structural similarities to that but might be ‘time to bring in a massive brass android with a penchant for ripping off people’s heads’ or ‘time to bring in the ancient and thoroughly unpleasant Golgoloth’.

It’s something I’ll have to ponder.

7 comments:

Darren Goldsmith said...

Yay! You can never have enough huge brass androids ripping off heads...

Huan said...

I am partial to the odd psychopathic android, but the sheer amoral evilness of the Golgoloth takes some beating. Anything that is used as a bogeyman to scare juvenile Prador has to be good!

Erik Lundqvist said...

Every book should have a huge brass android!

Roger Schweingruber said...

Why not dedicate the book to your blog readers ;-)

packrat54 said...

if he does that we may be rounded up for questioning.

Grim's Reality said...

Crane Nuff said.

Neal Asher said...

Thanks for the commnets. And thanks for yours, Packrat54. I actually giggled.