throw another bear in the canoe

I have my edit letter for Whiskey & Water.

Liz said (after a lengthy list of things she liked about the book, for which I am eternally grateful, especially since one of the things she liked was Kit) she thought it needed more changes than B&I did... and then she went on to list them.

And, as predicted, she mostly thinks the omniscient isn't such a good idea. Pity the book won't be written in anything else. (Hopefully, this is the last time I will ever have that problem. As God is my witness, I will never eat carrots write a book in omni again!)

Actually, I think I'm looking at less work than last time, but don't tell her I said that. The problem is that, no matter what I do to the first 200 pages of this book, it's boring. And I need it. It does a lot of things I need to have happen. But it's so busy laying the bricks that need to be laid for the last 300 pages of the book to come down like the ton of bricks they are, that it's a bit tensionless.

And I've been over it twice now trying to punch it up, and apparently my efforts have been insufficient.

So, I will be celebrating NaDruWriNi by guzzling Laphraoig and looking for places to insert explosions.

Without actually increasing the word count.

*contemplates*

I'm going to need a bigger bottle.

---

In good news, though, both kit_kindred and the grandmotherly security guard at the shoe store thought my hair looked cute.

Two fingers of scotch and no dinner. I'm not actually tipsy yet, but I am on page 263 of the MS and highlighting things that need to be fixed. Of course, one of the things Liz wants cut is one of my favorite bits of self-indulgence in the book. I may fight for it on the grounds that it's both foreshadowing and thematic, even if it is not so much plot.

We do it for the glamor.

I love the editorial process.

And I'm switching to the bourbon, because there's no point in wasting quarter-cask Laphroaig on a numb tongue.

I have just commenced my second bourbon. The pizza isn't hear yet, which means I haven't eaten anything since 1 o'clock. Which was sushi.

I am.... more inclined to be honest than usual. And on page 454 of the first go-over and highlight.

Sigh.

I had almost started liking this book again.

Made it through the notes. Have realized that, of a seven page editorial letter, 5.5 pages apply to the first 250 pages of the novel.

It's official. Unlike everybody else in this fucken genre, I suck at beginnings and rock endings.

Third bourbon consumed. Commencing pizza assimilation.

OMG I'm soooo drunk..................................

I love you, man.

I miss Phil Ochs, damn him to Hell as a suicide. You know, I wrote a story about Phil once.

And it occurs to me that I need an idol that isn't a suicide or a murder victim. But maybe that's the bourbon talking.

Ahhhh, Phil.

The motherfucker hanged himself off an apple tree when I was five years old. What right does he have, influencing my fiction as much as he does?