Feasts, Famines

December 1

Happy December!

Sorry I haven't updated in so long -- it's been a ludicrously busy weekend, with most of my waking moments dedicated to completing revisions on my novel. I line-edited about 450 pages, starting Thursday night, finishing this afternoon. Now I'm done. 540 manuscript pages total, revised, line-edited, and printed out. Heather's been reading along, catching typos, and once she reads the last quarter of the book (which I worked on yesterday and today), and I correct any errors she finds, I'll send it out to some of my first readers, in hopes that they will graciously note any continuity errors, logical flaws, terribly awkward lines, stupid factual errors, inconsistencies, and so forth. While they note my failings, I'll write a synopsis... and, soon, send my book out. I'd say "Whee!" but I'm too exhausted. I've spend a lot of hours at the keyboard this weekend.

It's been an eventful few days. Thanksgiving was very pleasant, dinner with some friends of Susan's, then an evening of work work work. I really love Thanksgiving, it's one of my favorite holidays. Mmm, turkey. Mmm, being conscious of all the good things life brings. Mmm, pie.

Friday (Buy Nothing Day!) Heather and I went to Berkeley, to cancel our YMCA membership (we're too broke to pay for it, pout), pay our PO Box rental fee, and check our mail. I got a review copy of Erin's lovely chapbook, and some Star*Line submissions, and a big envelope from dear Jon full of myriad treats for the Prattshaws! A very happy mail day. Heather and I decided to splurge and had an early dinner at Barney's, good shakes, divine fries. Later we watched Gladiator, which has people being chopped in half. Pretty good stuff.

Saturday was a big big day. I took Heather to the good sammitch shop and got our favorite sammitches, and then we went to the Oakland Rose Garden, where we had our first date many moons ago, and had a picnic (using the good picnic basket we got from Karen when she moved away). The roses were blooming, strange European men were envious of our lifestyle, and all was well. I read Heather a poem, about what a miracle it is that we found each other, about the improbable chain of events that brought us together in the same room one March day, and everything that resulted from that meeting. I then gave Heather a test -- I held a white ring box in one hand, and a slightly battered Kinder-Egg (which Scott brought me from France long ago), and asked Heather which of these, knowing me, was likely to contain the ring. Without hesitating, she took the egg, popped it open, and found my small wooden boat inside, with the engagement ring around the smokestack. "Will you sail around my life with me?" I asked. Before she could answer, I gave her a sheet on which I'd written some sample answers, including a roses-are-red bit of doggerel, a dirty limerick ("There once was a woman from Franklin..."), and "Yes."

She chose "Yes."

And with a la la la and a smooch smooch smooch, we became formally, truly, really, actually engaged.

We went home, and had a rollicking good frolic, and then I revised a bit. Then we went over to Susan's, and she drove us to Drunken Fish for a celebratory engagement dinner, her treat (Susan's marvelousness knows no bounds). She poured us each a bit of sake and proposed a toast. We expected a "happy engagement" toast, but instead it was a "happy fiction sale, Heather!" toast.

Yep. Heather sold her wonderful story "Famishing" to Strange Horizons. My girl, my rambleflower, my sweet delight, made her first pro sale, and got her acceptance at a sushi bar, of all things, which is pretty lovely. It doesn't get much better than that, to get engaged, and eat sushi, and make your first pro sale all in one day! I am so breathtakingly proud of her, so happy for her, so very pleased. She's been bouncing about ever since. And it's a brilliant story. Mmm. Loveliness. We had dinner, and went back to Susan's, and drank a bottle of wine, and talk talk talked the night away. Then we came home, and I revised 80 pages of my novel, because the work doesn't care how much fun you're having doing other things, the work has to be done.

(Read Heather's account of the weekend's events here.)

Today we rose, made coffee, and I dove into finishing my book, which I did. Then I ran away from my computer, and moped around, briefly ensnared in post-novel depression. We went to the grocery store, got frozen pizzas and bread (unfrozen) and artichoke dip (also unfrozen), and rented Spy Kids because silliness seemed appropriate. We came home, and ate, and watched the movie, and I felt better. Heather's reading my book now, finding lots of typos, natch. It's good.

Other good things: I read From a Buick 8 by King, and it's a marvelous book, very impressive, one of his best. I'm reading The Night Watch by Sean Stewart, and despite some initial difficulty getting into it, I now like it more than Galveston, I think. I may finish reading it tonight. We borrowed a car, too, a two-door manual transmission Toyota, small and reasonably zippy, and we can use it sort-of-indefinitely, we hope until such a time as we can buy a car of our own.

Oh, and some writing-related good news of my own -- I got a rewrite request from Strange Horizons, and the changes they want are good and reasonable and will make the story better. I'll work on that this week, and maybe they'll want it, and if not, it will still be a better story for their input. I'm feeling even more fond of those notorious style monkeys than usual lately...

Words written since February 1, 2002: 188,200

Words written since last entry:
5,000 (one complete scene in Rangergirl, and a couple thousand words of miscellaneous novel additions, and a proposal poem)

Send your congratulations to Heather.

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

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