Last night I woke abruptly from a dream in which I was reading the revision letter for the manuscript I'd sent in earlier this month. In the letter, my editor gently pointed out that I'd inserted a huge chunk of fanfic in the middle of the book, and I should be prepared to cut that section. She didn't think that we could get licensing rights for that property--particularly since I'd killed off one of their main characters.
I called my editor to discuss and informed her that the character in question NEEDED TO DIE. The ever-patient Anne agreed, and then pointed out, once again, the issue of licensing. [more]
This is how a writer's mind works. :) You seize upon something that is very frequently *totally* irrational, and gnaw it like it's coyote ugly. (It took three times to spell 'coyote' correctly. Given the title of my next book, you would not think that word would be a problem.) A while ago, having revised HEART OF STONE approximately nine hundred thousand times, I realized to my abject horror that the hero and the heroine's last names both started with the same letter. Now, I spend a lot of time thinking about character names and meanings and echoes and reflections and Stuff Like That. There were *reasons* for their names being what they were. But one of them is "Knight", and I don't think my brain ever fully registered that 'knight' starts with a K.
I spent three days completely obsessed with this detail and how people were going to think I was being cutsey and kitschy and other things ending in -y. My mother thought I was completely mad and that nobody would notice except a handful of people who might think there was Meaning to it. And really, this is a dumb thing to worry about. Still. Total obsession. Reality need not apply.
I have, for some value of fortunately, been sufficiently busy the last couple of years to not have time to share
I may have strayed off the point there. Or maybe I didn't. Hard to tell. Anyway, done typing for now. :)
miles to Dunharrow: 148