An editor whose name I have known since before I was writing, and whose authors have been almost uniformly effusive in their praise, was asking around about me, and when she talked to my agent, asked to see something by me. I’ve never met her, never written for her, never even written for her house. However, she is, it turns out, familiar with my work: I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know which work, but…oh, God!
Since apparently the weary brain is not yet ready to leap into the project at hand, I’m going to give myself a couple of days to play, interviewing characters and tossing them into different situations. I want to see if I can build something fascinating and irresistible for her, and if a little romping and some warm-ups kick-start me back into regular pages on the project at hand, so very much the better.
Today, a hard perusal of her line, followed a bit of time luring strangers into my head with a table set with…what? Roast crocodile, peacocks stuffed with hummingbird tongues, dancing slave girls and the vomitorium after? Caviar and fine wines, brie and Roquefort, delicate lamb in a thick sauce, and a chamber quartet? Cookies and milk preceded by PBJ sandwiches and chips? Reconsta and gengineered Kobe steak, and a spacestation game of the anti-grave game paratenka, or something like it? I have all of space and time, and all the dimensions of all the universes that have ever and never existed as my playground, and today I start winnowing. How to choose, how to choose.
And so to work. (I love my job.)
Leave a Reply