the edit

So I was talking to the Published Writer I've met on one of my favorite IRC channels, and he asked me how the edit was going.

"Terrible," I said. "I'm getting through about half a page a day."

He agreed that was pretty terrible, and suggested I give myself a page goal for each day. That made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I took his point. At the rate I was reportedly going, I'd be editing this thing into the next century.

But then I wondered: is it actually TRUE that I'm only getting through half a page a day? I went back and did the math, and here's the answer:

8.8.

I've been averaging 8.8 pages per day. It only SEEMS like half a page a day because it feels like I'm etching every damned word by hand in my own blood right now.

When did I get so stupid? I used to be able to just scribble down my thoughts with hardly any effort. Now I seem to struggle for everything deeper than a mere recital of the facts: "Julia got out of bed. She went into the kitchen. There was a man sitting at her kitchen table."

*head→desk*

Also, as I read over chapter 4 before printing, I noticed that the characters have all become slightly less interesting, especially my protag and her love interest. They had a nice at-each-others'-throats thing going on, and I managed to sink it.

I guess I'll have to fix that on the NEXT edit. Damn it.

maybe...

Sara Paretsky can save my immortal soul. I've never felt compelled to read her, for what I now realize is kind of a stupid reason: I saw a V.I. Warshawski movie and really hated the character. However, as we all know, movie characters are rarely true to their literary roots. The V.I. I saw was probably sexed-up beyond all recognition and said stupid things that Paretsky never made her say. So I'm going to give her a try.

depressing development

I started reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser books about a year ago, since he has been called the successor to Raymond Chandler, and I loved Chandler. Unfortunately, despite my affection for Spenser and for Parker's writing, I may have to stop reading him.

My beef is that Spenser seems to have become something of a mouthpiece in the most recent books, to comment negatively on 'the women's movement.' Some of it could be cultural context, as the book I'm reading now, "Early Autumn," was published in 1981, when the general public's understanding of feminism was still pretty crude (I'm reading the books in chronological order).

Then I remember other 'hardboiled' books of the era, in which the characters are all thoroughly savage, yet don't give me the same misogynist gut-punch that the last couple of Spenser books did -- and I despair.

I despair because I've run out of things to read. I've been through all the great women mystery writers, and some of the not-so-great ones, and I despair!