So today I was going to pass along some news about the book in a blog titled, “Why I don’t talk about Book Two.”
The blog was proving rather difficult to write until I realized it was really two blogs. So today we’re just going to get the news, and I’ll talk about the other stuff later.
Here’s the news: I’ve finally finished my latest draft of The Wise Man’s Fear.
Oot is shown in order to give a sense of scale. And because my baby is frikkin adorable.
This manuscript is about 200 pages longer, and about 500 pages different than the last one I took a picture of. I’ve fixed plotting, tweaked characters, cut scenes, added scenes, re-written, re-organized, re-read, and re-re-organized sections of it so many times that I couldn’t even begin to give you a number of versions it’s been through.
Now last time I posted up a picture of a manuscript on the blog, people got all twitterpated. They saw that big stack of papers and said things like, “Yay! That means the book will be out next month!!1!” and “Wow! How are they going to bind something that big?!?”
So before we all go leaping to a bunch of unfounded and erroneous conclusions, let’s talk about a few things.
First, this manuscript is printed in….(wait for it) manuscript format. That means it’s one-sided, double spaced, and printed in courier new font. That’s what makes it look so big. Typesetting the book comes later in the process. That’s one of the many, many steps that comes later.
That said, The Wise Man’s Fear is going to be bigger than The Name of the Wind by at least 100,000 words or so.
Second, let’s discuss what a draft is. A draft is a version of a piece of writing. Almost always it is an early or preliminary version. You can have things like a rough draft, which is… well… rough. A second draft, which comes after the first draft. Or you can have things like a final draft, which is… well… final.
Is this going too fast for anyone?
This is not the final draft of book two. If it were, I would have said something like, “This is the final draft of book two.” But I didn’t. So it’s not.
But it isn’t a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns.
This draft is tighter, cleaner, and all around better. I’m really pleased with it, but it’s not quite perfect. Not yet.
What this *doesn’t* mean.
The book will not be out next week. The book will not be out next month. Right now there’s no publication date. Remember when I said there wasn’t a publications date? There’s no publication date.
What this *does* mean.
The book is a big step closer to being done.
The book is way better than it was before. That last draft of the book was okay. It had some great parts, some parts that were “meh” and some that were “huh?” Overall, it averaged out to about 70 percent awesome.
Which isn’t bad, but I’m not content with a C-minus book. This draft is way better. I’m guessing about 90-92 percent awesome. Way better. But still not perfect.
I’m working on the book, even if I don’t constantly talk about it here on the blog. More about this in the upcoming blog: Why I don’t talk about Book Two.
What happens now?
This manuscript goes to my editor, Betsy. She reads it carefully, maybe twice. She makes notes, then we talk about what she thinks might need to be changed/tweaked/fixed.
Then, depending on how much work we think it needs. We put it into the production schedule. That means we’ll have a publication date. Which I will tell you. On the blog. With words.
Then I do another set of revisions. Or more likely, several smaller sets of revisions, as I’m a freak like that. Luckily, these next sets won’t be nearly so extensive as my last round.
In metaphorical terms, the last round of revisions was like an organ transplant. Invasive, complex, labor intensive, and with a long recovery time. The revisions I do after this will probably be more like cosmetic surgery. Or an appendectomy at worst.
But first, I get to relax. I’ve been working on this fucker nonstop for months. And now, finally, I get to take a break while I wait for Betsy’s feedback.
I’m pretty excited to be seeing more of you too, Oot.
You see folks, Oot is one happy baby, all laughs and smiles. But in order to get this revision finished, there have been times over the last several months when I’ve spent weeks at a stretch working 10-14 hours a day. That’s not counting e-mail, dealing with translators, and writing the occasional blog.
That means on some busy days, I only get to play with him for half an hour or so. If our sleep schedules don’t match up, some days I don’t get to see him at all while he’s awake.
I’m not mentioning this to get sympathy. I’m mentioning it so you can better understand my life. I’m mentioning this so you know what exactly goes through my head when someone sends me an e-mail or posts on my blog, saying, “Just finish the book for fucksake!”
So…. that’s the news. The book is going well. There are parts of it that I’m so proud of that I almost can’t help but talk about them here. It’s coming. Be patient. And rest assured that I’m not just lounging around, doing whippets and eating the cotton-candy underthings off nubile young catgirls.
As for myself, now that the book is out of my hands for a couple weeks, I’m planning on catching up on some family stuff and playing Bioshock 2 until I puke.
Oh, and I’ll be catching up on a few blogs I’ve been meaning to post, too. Tune in on Monday and I’ll be announcing some of my upcoming appearances for convention season.
There will also be a chance for you to get me to come do a reading/signing at your local bookstore if you live in the right part of the country. Specifically in between Chicago and West Virginia…
So stay tuned….
pat
I said I’d tell you when I knew….
So my editor has finished reading the great beastly draft of The Wise Man’s Fear I sent her a while back.
It’s the third draft she’s read, but it’s the first one I’ve really had any confidence in. The first one was pure crap. The second one was mostly complete but still pretty shaky in parts.
This draft was good. I’m verging on being proud of it. It still has a few problems, but they’re manageable problems. They’re problems I can percieve and get my head around, and that means they’re problems I can solve.
So Betsy got back to me with her feedback on the manuscript: a list of 27 things she felt needed attention in the book, arranged in nicely worded bullet points. (The formatting was at my request. I’m fond of bullet points.)
Some of her 27 points are small things. Some are bigger issues. We agree about most of them. Two or three will require a bit of negotiation.
It’s really not a long list, especially when you consider that my own list of things-that-need-fixing-in-book-two currently stands at about 50 or 60 items.
Every time I sit down to work on the book, I try to resolve a few of those issues. Sometimes I fix something and cross it off the list. Other times, a beta reader will bring something to my attention and I add it to the list. As I work, sometimes new problems occur to me, and I add those to the list as well. Sometimes I fix something, and that causes a new problem. So I cross something off and add something at the same time.
It’s kinda like trying to iron all the wrinkles out of a shirt. A huge, living, n-dimentional shirt.
As an example: tonight I worked on the book for about 9 hours. I crossed off four things on my list and added six things. But most of those six things are small, while two of the things I fixed were moderately big and complicated. So it was a good day’s work. (Unfortunately, because one problem tangled me up for four hours, I didn’t get home until 1:30 AM, which means I didn’t get to say goodnight to Oot, which sucks.)
Anyway, earlier today I talked on the phone with my editor about the book. We talked about her 27 points.
My editor asked me if I could have the book done by September.
I thought about it. I thought about her 27 points and my ever-changing 50-60 points. I thought about who I can still use as beta readers, and how many drafts I’ll be able go through in four months. I thought about how many times I will personally be able to read the book in four months.
I said I was sure I could finish it by September.
She asked me if I was sure. Really sure.
I thought about it. Back in 2007, I was sure I’d have the book done by 2008. But I was hugely ignorant and optimistic back then. So I was dead fucking wrong. That caused a lot of grief.
I told her I was really sure I could have it finished by September.
Come hell or high water? She asked me.
Come hell or high water, I said.
So we agreed that I’d have the book finished by September. It was nice. It made us both happy.
So that’s part of the news, that I’ll be finished writing The Wise Man’s Fear by September.
But here’s the rest of the news: that means that the book can’t come out until March of 2011.
Why? Well, for a bunch of reasons. Mostly because there are a lot of things that have to happen before a mass of text becomes a printed book on a shelf. It needs to be copyedited. The edits need to be confirmed. It needs to be proofed, checked for consistency, fiddled with. Fonts need to be chosen. It needs to go through layout. Then it needs to be proofed again. Marketing needs to happen. It needs to be sent to reviewers, and the reviewers need to have time to read it before they write the reviews. It needs to be put into catalogs of to-be-published-books so people who run bookstores can learn about it and order copies for their stores. It needs to be printed, boxed, warehoused, shipped. We need to sacrifice a black she-goat and pray to strange and terrible gods. Then we need to proofread again.
A lot of these steps are going to take longer than normal because my book is 2-3 times longer than most ordinary novels. Other things are going to take longer because this book is kinda important to a lot of people, and we want to make sure everything gets done just right.
The simple truth of the matter is this: that’s just the way it is. I wish it could be sooner, and I’m guessing many of you feel the same. Believe it or not, if the publisher could wave a magic wand and make that happen, they would. (Remember, they don’t make money on the book until they can sell it.)
But there’s no way the book can come out earlier and still have it be the best book possible.
So that’s what happened today: I found out the publication date for The Wise Man’s Fear – March 1st 2011.
Honestly, it would be way easier for me to sit on this information for a while. I could wait until the date was a little closer, thereby avoid some of the great wailing and gnashing of teeth I expect will follow this announcement. That shit brings me no joy. It damages my calm and makes it harder for me to write.
But I promised y’all I would pass along the *real* publication date as soon as I knew it. So that’s what I’m doing.
March 1st 2011.
pat