...well, it appears to be that time again. Cue madness.: seanan

...well, it appears to be that time again. Cue madness.

Tuesday, I realized there was something wrong with The Brightest Fell (October Daye, book five).

Wednesday, I began reworking the book from the beginning, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. Twenty pages in, I figured out what the problem was. Twenty pages after that, I came up for air.

Thursday, a package containing the page proofs for An Artificial Night landed on my doorstep, roughly four hours after the official sign-and-return contracts for Late Eclipses and The Brightest Fell landed in my hands. And to this I say...

Here we go again.

Tonight, I'm going to go home, pick up the page proofs, and decamp to the Starbucks down the street, where the combination of caffeine, iPod, and no fixed bedtime will enable me to burn through a decent number of chapters before I collapse into a twitching heap. Tomorrow, I'll get out of bed, take my walk to the 7-11 (land of "it's exactly a mile and a half round-trip"), and get back to work on The Brightest Fell. By the end of the weekend, I expect to be at least eighty pages into both manuscripts.

Toby's world is one that's very familiar to me, and very welcoming, because I've spent so much time there. At the same time, The Brightest Fell has been a challenge—it's resolving a lot of things that should make people very happy—while An Artificial Night remains my favorite of the first three, and thus needs to be as bad-ass as possible. So, you know. No pressure or anything.

But gee, it's nice to be running away with the faeries again.

amazon_syren

May 21 2010, 18:16:59 UTC 7 years ago

New comment

:-D

(Looking forward to both, by the way).

Re-read Rosemary and Rue over the past week. <3 Yay, Toby. :-)

seanan_mcguire

May 21 2010, 18:39:59 UTC 7 years ago

Glee!

People need to be told these things...

admnaismith

May 21 2010, 18:43:32 UTC 7 years ago

You had me at "October Daye, Book Five".

I read books by the truckload. I've only seen the first two Toby books, of course, and it's already my fourth favorite series after Travis McGee, Aubrey/Maturin and Master Li...and since those serieses are complete, it may be that you surpass even those. It's that good.

Come to OryCon this year. I will have Toby filks, and if they amuse you 1/10 as much as A Local Habitation amused me, you'll have the time of your life.

Re: People need to be told these things...

May 21 2010, 18:46:23 UTC 7 years ago

Win!

(I am monosyllabic right now.)

blitheringpooks

May 21 2010, 18:53:50 UTC 7 years ago

How late does your Starbucks stay open?

I really need to walk more. I just hate how busy the streets are that I'd have to walk to get anywhere I want to go--wide six-lane blvd with heavy traffic. Yuck.

May 24 2010, 14:55:09 UTC 7 years ago

It closes at nine, but I tend to go to sleep around nine, so it works out for me.

vixyish

May 21 2010, 19:00:44 UTC 7 years ago

AAN is my favorite of the first three, too. Oh I can't *WAIT*. :D

marziek

May 21 2010, 19:29:12 UTC 7 years ago

Okay, since Vixy is your dear friend Seanan, I'm going to try very, very hard not to be frothing with envy that she's 1) read AAN and 2) has her "What I'm Reading" status as "The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire". OMGosh it's hard to bear! LOL

Have fun writing and can't WAIT for September!

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May 21 2010, 19:48:23 UTC 7 years ago

Heh! I do try not to gloat; I hope it didn't seem that way, and I'm sorry if it did. To be fair, it's not just free sneak previews; I'm one of the proofers, which means I'm reading drafts and providing useful editorial feedback on each draft. (That's why TBF has been hanging out in my "currently reading" list for A VERY LONG TIME NOW. Ahem.) :D

This is also why I recommend the series *highly*. Because I read each new draft entirely, from page 1 (as I think all the proofers do). These are books I literally read from beginning to end over and over and over, and *still* get caught up in them to the exclusion of all else around me.

vincentursus

May 21 2010, 23:31:18 UTC 7 years ago

I regard aiding in Seanan's getting more books finished to be an activity that makes the world a better place.

Take pride in your actions.

May 24 2010, 14:55:59 UTC 7 years ago

Yeah, you've been reading TBF for what, three years now? I swear I'll finish it soon...

branna

May 21 2010, 22:36:26 UTC 7 years ago

bwahahaha

Hmm, maybe the proofing/critique list needs buttons...

May 24 2010, 14:56:31 UTC 7 years ago

MACHETE SQUAD.

May 24 2010, 14:56:17 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you for not killing my Vixy. I do not function well without her.

May 24 2010, 14:55:23 UTC 7 years ago

The proofs are so pretty.

bigherman

May 21 2010, 19:58:41 UTC 7 years ago

I would vote Panama Bay over Starbucks, because at Panama Bay they're not coffee Nazis (no buy drink?! No internets for you!) or even plug-in Nazis (no electricity for you!), but I think you're in the other of Concord in the vague Claycord area :(.

Good luck this weekend!