Now Playing: Echo and the Bunnymen
One thing I've learned in this business is never assume you'll be doing anything from one week to the next. Instead of diving into a new story, I've been back working on HoS again. The chance arose to do a bound proof (something we've either not done, or done so late in the production process that it's of debatable value) from the existing manuscript. While happy with the idea of getting proofs out earlier than usual, I felt that - with the benefit of a few days away from it - there were a few things I'd like to take care of before the book was read by more than a handful of people. Then my wife read the submitted version and raised a few points of her own ... and here I am, five days later, with a different draft of the book about to go back to the publisher to form the proof. There is still some work to do over the weekend, but this draft comes in at about 180,000 words- about 22,000 words below the earlier version. That's still a long book by any measure, but it's short by my standards.
I've also been trying to catch up on my correspondence, but since I've been working backwards through my inbox rather than forwards, if you sent me an email more than three or four weeks ago, I still won't have caught up with you. Rest assured I'll do my best to catch up next week - hopefully before I dash off to Leuven for the next Beneluxcon.
In the meantime, time to mention that my CD of the week is Roisin Murphy's rather fantastic Overpowered, and that the book I'm reading now is Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn.
