Blue Collar Writer
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniSteve and I have two calendars on the kitchen table — those big, brick calendars that you pull off a page a day? — that we look at together every morning with breakfast.
One is a New Yorker cartoon calendar, which delivers its usual mix of shouted laughter and blank stares. The other is Quotes from Wild Women, which, sadly, is not living up to its hype. Today, for instance, it delivered up a quote from Annie Dillard, which I don’t remember — something about wanting a dark room to write in so the outer scenery doesn’t come between you and your inner version (paraphrasing broadly here).
…and I said to Steve, “Yanno, the only thing I know about Annie Dillard is that her writing advice is considered Holy by a certain subset of writers I know, but I haven’t the faintest idea what she’s written.”
Steve, being the sort of guy he is, immediately went to Amazon and found a list of Ms. Dillard’s works. Several of which seem to the same book, which has been “amended” after its initial publication.
My first reaction, upon hearing this was, “My ghod, how can she AFFORD to just keep tinking with the same books?”
…and so my bias is revealed.
Ms. Dillard is, as you probably knew, but I only today discovered, an emeritus professor. She had, I assume, tenure, and didn’t have to worry about writing new books; about earning out; about keeping her audience. I mean, I’m sure she worried about it, but not in the same way that I worry about losing audience, market appeal, royalties and contracts. Because, here? No tenure. Writing is my job. Yes, I have a day-job, but it doesn’t support me (day-jobs used to support one; it was the temptation of day-jobs; the tension. If you had a job that paid all your bills, and kept you in relative comfort, where was the drive to make your art — aside the art itself? Now day-jobs support the stockholders, who sow not, nor do they spin. But that’s another rant.); income from writing is what keeps this household. If I had to choose one income stream to dry up and blow away, it would be the day-job (speaking from a purely economic perspective, and absent its many other flaws); the writing more nearly supporting us.
Though — I dunno. Maybe I should sit back here, in my room with a very nice view, and cats, too — re-vision, rewrite and re-release Agent of Change? What would I do, exactly, to “amend” it?
Well. . .rewrite a whole lot of sentences. I know more about sentences now than I did when we wrote Agent.
On the other hand. . .Agent of Change has a helluva lot of energy, you notice? Wouldn’t want to lose that, and who knows if the gaumy sentences are part of what fuels that jazzy, off-center drive?
Nah, best not to mess with what’s written.
Besides, we have three new books under contract.
Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 01:16 am (UTC)I'm not all that fond of her fiction, but PILGRIM AT TINKER'S CREEK is d*mn near a perfect book, and AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD is also very good.
They are, however, very different from the Lee / Miller oeuvre (not "better", just "different") and the sort of books that can stand revisiting and repolishing from time to time.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 11:20 am (UTC)For the Meisha Merlin re-issue, we did add back in a line in Conflict of Honors that had been removed by the editor at Del Rey in respect of the tender feelings of "housewives in Iowa," but in general, I'm a'gin rewriting works that have already been published.
This is especially hard when we're going over the galleys for older works. But, because of the constraints of working not only in-genre but within a continuous universe, where every story snaps into every other story -- Steve and I have agreed that we will leave what has been published alone. We do not fix "bad sentences." We do fix Actual Errors in the text -- those being misspellings that have been introduced in the new edition and/or have managed to escape the copy editor's comb across multiple editions; punctuation, spacing errors.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 06:19 pm (UTC)It must be a delicate balance for the authors, to decide when that kind of infill is pleasing and when it becomes tedious.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 09:12 pm (UTC)I see nothing at all wrong with going back and writing a story to fill in a gap.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 03:34 am (UTC)S'far as I'm concerned, that means you win.
OTOH, I've never heard of Annie Dillard, so what do I know? Sounds like I should at least check out Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, and see if it's the kind of thing I can tolerate.
Re Writing?
Date: 2011-01-27 08:41 am (UTC)Good luck with all the medical stuff. It seems to be landing on both of you at this time including Hexapuma's condition. Fingers and paws crossed for a good outcome in this household.
C.
Annie Dillard
Date: 2011-01-27 08:50 am (UTC)C.
C.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 06:20 pm (UTC)Mouse and Dragon
Date: 2011-01-27 07:00 pm (UTC)Re-writes
Date: 2011-01-28 08:22 am (UTC)Sue H
Rewrite
Date: 2011-02-01 07:14 pm (UTC)Poul Anderson addressed the same issue when he re-published Hrolf Kraki’s Saga. Poul could see the flaws in that early opus. IIRC he decided that A; a book should be respected for what it is, and for when it was written. B; It would pay better if he spent his time writing a new book.
“In genre, yes, the readers want new! different! Consider that we won a certain amount of grief for writing Mouse and Dragon -- a book that didn't "need" to be written, and where "everyone" "knew what happened." And that was only the sequel to an "unnecessary" book. I can only imagine the complaints, had we decided to amend a previous novel and re-release it.”
If you only want to know plot points, God has invented CliffsNotes.
It’s fortunate I never twigged that Pilot’s Choice was unnecessary. I might have avoided the mistake of loving Mouse and Dragon.
“Though — I dunno. Maybe I should sit back here, in my room with a very nice view, and cats, too — re-vision, rewrite and re-release Agent of Change? What would I do, exactly, to “amend” it?”
One thing bothers me about Agent of Change. You have this canny interstellar agent. You expect him to know his trade. He’s being checked out by The Bad Guys. (I forget the name of the political gang.) The danger is high enough that he sets fire to the building as a distraction. Of course there are Bad Guys watching in person and on scans. (They’d send out search teams for someone this dangerous.) It’s okay. Val Con and Miri are anonymous. They can leave unnoticed amidst the fleeing crowd.
Then come the Turtles. Granted, Val Con needs to approach Edger. But…does he have to make his bow there? In the lobby of a burning building? In the middle of a crowd? With scanner records for cops to study? With the Juntavas searching for their traitor bodyguard? With the Bad Guy Gang on the prowl? To Clutch Turtles?
Our Heroes could leave anonymously and follow the Turtles. I don’t know the spy business. But how hard can it be for a first-in Scout to trail Clutch Turtles through a human city? Once Edger is away from likely surveillance, Val Con could stage his meet-cute. Granted, the writers would have to invent another way to alert the Bad Guys. So what? That’s what writers are for.
Do I want this plot hole fixed? Not a bit of it. That goofy detail is part of the charm of the book. I’d be sad to see it improved.
Raymond
Re: Rewrite
Date: 2011-02-01 09:27 pm (UTC)And it's not a plot hole if the action moves the characters deeper into the story, and does not contravene any of the Rules Of The Book that have been lain down by the authors.
What it sounds like is a reader who is over-thinking the set-up, or who has fallen out of the story. I do this with movies all the time -- when I start asking questions like, "But even if he gets away this time, how can he possibly supposed that They (They) won't be waiting for him in New York, Chicago, Paris, Istanbul, Hong Kong?" -- it's because I've fallen out of Story World and have begun applying Real World rules to the story.
And this? Is why the same book can and has been dinged and praised as "brilliant!" "boring!" "stunning!" "illiterate!"
Re-rewrite
Date: 2011-02-03 05:21 pm (UTC)I have no problem with the Rules Of The Book. Some details of the Liaden Universe seem scientifically unlikely to me. But that’s in the nature of Science Fiction.
I first met Liad in Partners In Necessity. Agent of Change was a different kind of book than Conflict of Honors. On first reading I had no problem with Val Con’s approach to the turtles. That’s because he was a stranger. I had only first blush notions of the sort of person—and agent—he might be. It looked like a clumsy move, but I didn’t care.
The problem came with further reading. In the rest of the book, and in other books, “The Scout” was hyper-able and smart as a whip. These were essential aspects of his character. Val Con is an example of Heinlein’s “Competent Man”. It is in the light of this…what’s the opposite of back story? Front story? The more I knew him through his front story, the less the move in question fit his character.
That’s where I fall out of the story. If the authors had explained that he was overwhelmed by seeing old friends and acted impulsively, it would have worked. If he’d practiced better trade craft, it would have worked.
As it is, I read to that point and go “Thump!”
Raymond