Saint Death’s Herald: The State of the Edit

plus, a little bit of what I’ve been reading…

The edit letter my editor David from Solaris sent me was incredibly warm and reassuring. What he wrote was in line with many of my thoughts.

The first thing I did was make a big 23,000 word cut, and set it aside. In my head, it might become a novelette that I will publish sometime, someplace. In lieu of Lanie as the main character, with Duantri at her side, it would feature Tanaliín and Duantri on a separate adventure years before they ever came to Liriat and met Lanie Stones.

With that in mind, I am (in the current iteration anyway) using some of those events, which I have cut from the book, to give Duantri some prior knowledge about a place she and Lanie must go to, and some of the dangers they might be facing.

Cutting out a large part of the middle necessitates me going through and snipping and stitching so that the rest of the book makes sense. I need to add some things back in, but in a different order. Much of the work is structural: order of operations stuff. Things need to happen in order for the plot to make sense. But how the information is conveyed, and by whom, and when… that is all fluid.

It is fascinating work. (Writing is so DELICIOUSLY WEIRD.) I just must make sure to keep progressing, and rather quicker than is perhaps my natural wont.

And then there’s the entirely pleasurable sentence-level draft work. I love me an adverb, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes a well-wrought metaphor can more precisely describe a gesture, expression or emotion. Alternately, my language has a tendency, sometimes, to jump the shark of “extra” into, um, n’extra (next-level extra?), and when language gets too too too fancy, all at once, all the time, the general splendor can be… hmn. Diluted.

My answer to this? Fart jokes.

Okay, fart jokes in iambic pentameter.

I don’t know. It’s all a big experiment, but with a deadline. But I love the work.

I’m so happy to be home after our summer of madcap and marvelous travels. I have fallen in love with my office again, and my little twinkle lights, and my beeswax candles, and my mug of tea. I made a little to-do list on a notebook with my fountain pen, then left the window open, and it got rained on. I kind of loved that too.

My friend Patty Templeton has been getting up very early in the morning, before dawn, to write before her work day. I’m two hours ahead of her, but it’s still earlier than when I’d normally rise on my own, but I’ve been waking in order to write with her on Google Meet. We wave blearily into the camera and then tap away. Carlos writes naturally early in the morning, but I can really only do it consistently with a body mirror. I’m so grateful for this time with her.

…and so, so grateful for Carlos, who is often just around the corner in the living room, finishing up the gorgeous work of poetry, philosophy, and humor that’s his current sci-fi novella (working title: “The Cyberpunk Microseason Pillow-Book”), the likes of which, by the way, the world has never seen.

We read to each other, all our little drafts, and polish the work in the air between us. Soon he will start his semester, and steal his writing time when he can, so he is working feverishly to wrap up this project for himself before he starts on Thig again.

My friend Kyle and I are back to a more normal schedule of late morning-early afternoon writing as well, most weekdays. He’s working on a screenplay as I work on my novel edits. We often start by chatting about goals, and it’s so useful to learn cinematic vocabulary, and all the iterations a screenplay takes–summary, outline, script, pitch deck–before it ever gets embodied in actors, much less makes it to the screen.

I’m so lucky Patty and Kyle and I all started establishing these habits earlier this year and last year, because now they feel familiar and fine, and being in the “office” with other working artists really puts me right into the worker’s groove.

***

I took a break from blurbing till August, which I realize… it now is. I’ve been trying to catch up on some romance, some fantasy, some science fiction–and I got to judge a poetry contest for F(r)iction Magazine, which was an absolute delight. All the poems were so wonderful—full of color and musicality, experiment and beauty.

I must go back to blurbing soon, for my friend Randee Dawn has a new book out soon from Arc Manor, The Only Song Worth Singing, and I must read it!!!

***

Some books I recommend.

Romance:

I read Penny Reid’s Bananapants, which I was really looking forward to. Not only did it not disappoint, it surprised me with its poignancy. I wrote, in two separate updates:

Penny Reid’s new rom-com Bananapants did so much important, gorgeous work, and with such exquisite care taken to the specific metaphors of each character, including those who were living with chronic illnesses. There was something so human and so endearing about this one particularly, and I’m already a huge fan of the author’s previous work.

and

I really loved [Bananapants]. There’s so much I want to say about it. Of course, I’m a huge Penny Reid fan, but I thought this was a level-up in terms of characters who are charming, funny, sexy, neurodiverse, and dealing with a chronic illness. There is such care and specificity in the writing, and such vigorous metaphors, always particular to that character’s own experience, without saying it’s the same for everyone. Also just totally great, as far as writing, romance, and action subplot. And of course, the cast of family and friends surrounding our young lovers is so lovable.

Because I subscribe to Penny Reid’s blog, on her recent recommendation I also just flew through the first two books in B. K. Borison’s Lovelight series. Super charmed. Also, they’re fast, so I can FEED MY BRAIN nice things while in frenetic revise-and-edit mode.

Mystery:

My order of Sherry Thomas’s newest Lady Sherlock book, A Ruse of Shadows, came in more than a week ago, but I haven’t even unboxed it yet! I already know I’ll recommend it though, because I have loved every. single. sherry. thomas. book. thus far–especially the Lady Sherlock books–and I cannot fathom a world wherein this one would be the EXCEPTION.

F&SF:

I have books to pick up at our local Indie Kew and Willow–including P. Djèlí Clark’s The Dead Cat Tail Assassins. I finally got to meet Phenderson at Readercon this year, and it was thrilling, because I am SUCH A FAN GIRL. We were autographing in the same hour slot, side-by-side, so we got to chat a bit. He’s so cool. I love everything I’ve read, so far, by him.

Meanwhile, I am a few stories into Ann Leckie’s wonderful collection Lake of Souls. I read a short story or two at night, a few nights a week.

I keep removing the “Slay the Spire” game app from my phone, so that I’ll read instead of play. Of course, then I keep re-installing it. >.>

Earlier this week, I read the first book in Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorn and Roses series, on a friend’s recommendation, but also because it is everywhere I look, and mentioned on panels, and just sort of… in the air right now. It has a few elements of the ballad of Tam Lin, and many elements of Beauty and the Beast–the fairy tale, the Disney movie, as well as both Robin McKinley versions, Beauty and Rose Daughter–but that feeling of familiarity could just be me bringing my own canon to the reading. I read Holly Black’s Folk of Air series earlier this year, and this book lives in something of that same sphere.

I might read the others in the Maas series someday, or a different series by her, but for now I just went and read all the synopses of the other books, to get the overview. I was plot-curious. I’m not someone who minds what other people call “spoilers.” (I call them “spicers.”) Knowing the outline of what will happen makes everything better for me: alleviates my plot anxiety, and lets me focus on what I like best, craft.

I’m excited to finish reading a friend’s book, one that they wrote in a very exciting IP, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to say that I’m reading it until it’s published. It’s out soon, in the fall, so…So… I’ll talk about that one later.

I have stacks and stacks to read, including our beloved ZigZag Claybourn’s Breath, Warmth, and Dream, which is getting all the loveliest kinds of reviews that it deserves.

***

What else? I am sad sometimes. I have difficult, imaginary conversations in my head that I’d rather speak aloud.

I am often very happy. I am so glad to be home. I am trying to walk more. Every time I walk, I fall in love with the world, and my thoughts are at their most… fabulously useful, I guess you could say.

Also, after spending so much of the summer on the road, at hotel rooms and eating out, it is so good to cook. I love planning meals. I wake up, thinking about eating, and looking forward to a day of eating. A friend of mine once described her daughter as “food motivated, just like you,” which was the first I’d heard of it, but it wasn’t wrong.

Sometimes I cook even when I’m not hungry, just because I like the work. When I don’t want to, I don’t. There’s always plenty of leftovers to eat.

It feels good to blog again.

Now I need to re-establish our regular, monthly Sitzfleisch Poetry Hour now that I’m home, and get back in the habit of writing poetry.

I want to send more letters. See more theatre. Strengthen bonds with friends, new and old. What else is this life for?

In the meantime, Saint Death’s Herald is emerging from its newest chrysalis.

And soon, next year, it shall be yours.

As ever, I am

Yours truly,

C. S. E. Cooney