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writing trip
May. 30th, 2006 08:28 pmJust back, very very tired (for I was up past 2 am, on a roll writing) and with non-con crud, from another weekend's trip to work with my academic book-writing friend. This time, nothing to do with her book, which is in the post-copyediting stages where the trick is to ensure the editors took out all the dumb things they put in before. But at least the book is now listed in the catalog. Impressive even if they don't have a cover for it yet.
Instead, we bashed away at a collaborative article, which began the weekend as her crude and unfinished draft, but I brought a lot of my notes and we finished with a genuinely collaborative piece that's essentially finished, save for a few tiny holes.
The tough part was my Inklings article for the same outfit. This is a subject I know well enough that I could draft the article in my sleep, and therein lies the problem: how to do it clearly, logically, and felicitiously. A few weeks ago I drafted part of the article, squeezing the words out as if they were toothpaste. And lo, it was bad. Last week I started from scratch in an entirely different format, but the feeling of writing it was the same and so was the result. I brought it along, she took one look at it, and advised starting over again.
Last night we had our friend Lynnsky over at dinner, and after she left about 9:30 I thought about retiring for the night, but with some afternoon conversations in mind the tingling of an idea came to me, so I went to the family computer bank - the one overlooked by a cabinet with seven Hugos on it - and tried again. This time really winging it, just from memory, without any of the notes or source material I have at home. Wrote and wrote and wrote. Got about a third through again before a little fatigue set in, and outlined the rest. Dr. Academic found the printout when she got up this morning (long before I did), and said lo, this time it was good. I've cracked the problem of how to structure the thing.
If I'm awake at all tomorrow I'll continue. The deadline cometh.
The local four-year-old got her favorite babysitter for all day and overnight, and was satisfied enough not to get in the way. They made dozens of cut-out stars to hang from the ceiling of the laundry room to help pretend they were camping out in there. Later I rewarded child's good temper by playing school with her. Six-inch doll in the shape of an adult woman teaches den of three-inch dolls in the shape of Care Bears. Today's lesson, four-year-old declares, is geography. Pause. Whispered: "Daddy, what's geography?" Daddy, always long-patient: "Where things are." Learned that we're not in California, despite appearances. Learned that today is Cow Day. Somehow switched to spelling, and watched the creation of a very passable E and F.
Babysitter, a high-school sophomore, had gone home mentioning her big homework assignment, a paper on the Berlin Wall. First thought: that came down about the time she was born, my how time flies. Second thought: And how else are people her age expected to learn about such things, if nobody teaches them? Good for the school.
Instead, we bashed away at a collaborative article, which began the weekend as her crude and unfinished draft, but I brought a lot of my notes and we finished with a genuinely collaborative piece that's essentially finished, save for a few tiny holes.
The tough part was my Inklings article for the same outfit. This is a subject I know well enough that I could draft the article in my sleep, and therein lies the problem: how to do it clearly, logically, and felicitiously. A few weeks ago I drafted part of the article, squeezing the words out as if they were toothpaste. And lo, it was bad. Last week I started from scratch in an entirely different format, but the feeling of writing it was the same and so was the result. I brought it along, she took one look at it, and advised starting over again.
Last night we had our friend Lynnsky over at dinner, and after she left about 9:30 I thought about retiring for the night, but with some afternoon conversations in mind the tingling of an idea came to me, so I went to the family computer bank - the one overlooked by a cabinet with seven Hugos on it - and tried again. This time really winging it, just from memory, without any of the notes or source material I have at home. Wrote and wrote and wrote. Got about a third through again before a little fatigue set in, and outlined the rest. Dr. Academic found the printout when she got up this morning (long before I did), and said lo, this time it was good. I've cracked the problem of how to structure the thing.
If I'm awake at all tomorrow I'll continue. The deadline cometh.
The local four-year-old got her favorite babysitter for all day and overnight, and was satisfied enough not to get in the way. They made dozens of cut-out stars to hang from the ceiling of the laundry room to help pretend they were camping out in there. Later I rewarded child's good temper by playing school with her. Six-inch doll in the shape of an adult woman teaches den of three-inch dolls in the shape of Care Bears. Today's lesson, four-year-old declares, is geography. Pause. Whispered: "Daddy, what's geography?" Daddy, always long-patient: "Where things are." Learned that we're not in California, despite appearances. Learned that today is Cow Day. Somehow switched to spelling, and watched the creation of a very passable E and F.
Babysitter, a high-school sophomore, had gone home mentioning her big homework assignment, a paper on the Berlin Wall. First thought: that came down about the time she was born, my how time flies. Second thought: And how else are people her age expected to learn about such things, if nobody teaches them? Good for the school.
