This day has devolved from merely the usual sort of annoyance and uncertainty into full-blown Confusion and Incertitude. My agent just called to tell me that my editor at Penguin, John Morgan, is leaving for a job at DC Comics. My new editor will be Liz Scheier. I don't know what to expect from Liz. We haven't spoken yet; that happens tomorrow. Regardless, John will be missed. He was very good at not getting in the way, not trying to coauthor by editorial proxy and suchlike. His enthusiasm for Murder of Angels was wonderful. He called me a moment ago. Bang. Bang. This is the first time I've lost an editor during the writing of a novel.
So. Crap. It doesn't change anything about the publication schedule of Daughter of Hounds, and my agent was very encouraging about the new editor, who's apparently very pleased that she'll be working with me, but it's still not the sort of thing I needed just now.
Maybe it'll make me feel better if I complain about something. For example, it's been eating at me lately how many people have read Low Red Moon and mistakenly concluded that Narcissa Snow is, literally, a werewolf. She is not. At no point in the book does Narcissa transform into anything (which is rather her problem, actually) except in visions and bad dreams and Chance's morphine-induced hallucinations. It makes sense that Chance would think of Narcissa as "the werewolf," because she has no knowledge of the ghul, no point of reference. And no, the ghouls are not werewolves, either, though I've seen comments from readers to that effect, as well. There are no actual werewolves in Low Red Moon.
Nope. That didn't really make me feel any better.
Another weird online pharmacy spam today. This time the extraneous text conisisted of quotes from Aristotle, David Copperfield, and a number of other sources. Why? I don't know.
I shall go break something fragile now.
So. Crap. It doesn't change anything about the publication schedule of Daughter of Hounds, and my agent was very encouraging about the new editor, who's apparently very pleased that she'll be working with me, but it's still not the sort of thing I needed just now.
Maybe it'll make me feel better if I complain about something. For example, it's been eating at me lately how many people have read Low Red Moon and mistakenly concluded that Narcissa Snow is, literally, a werewolf. She is not. At no point in the book does Narcissa transform into anything (which is rather her problem, actually) except in visions and bad dreams and Chance's morphine-induced hallucinations. It makes sense that Chance would think of Narcissa as "the werewolf," because she has no knowledge of the ghul, no point of reference. And no, the ghouls are not werewolves, either, though I've seen comments from readers to that effect, as well. There are no actual werewolves in Low Red Moon.
Nope. That didn't really make me feel any better.
Another weird online pharmacy spam today. This time the extraneous text conisisted of quotes from Aristotle, David Copperfield, and a number of other sources. Why? I don't know.
I shall go break something fragile now.
- Current Mood:
slightly freaked out - Current Music:VNV Nation, "Airships"
Comments
It was news to me, as well.
They ("they"? I sound X-files paranoid) don't care about getting you to read the email. It is simply a way of identifying "good" email addresses from "bad" ones. The bad ones bounce. And most good spam filters will bounce empty email messages. And using passages from the classics will minimize the possibility of using words that the spam filter will identify as spam.
The technical term for this is “greeking”. As a writer, I’m sure you were already aware of that expression. What I always found ironic (yes, ironic, not unfortunate, like that damn fly in your Chardonnay) was that usually greeking is done using Latin words! The Latin looks normal for layout purposes, without distracting with content that everyone might read. Unless of course you spent way too much time with the nuns back in school taking Latin I, II, III and IV.
Whatever, it’s all Greek to me anyway.
Good luck with the whole "break[ing] something fragile" thing.
I'd begun to formulate just such an hypothesis. Thank you.
I wonder if it would be considered a weird compliment to find some of your own work in one of those spams...
Brings a whole new meaning to the new Monty Python Musical on Broadway called "Spamalot" doesn't it?
-pf
Nope.
If a former editor is now at DC, I see that as an opportunity. How about a Pain and Wonder comic miniseries of stories, like Harlan Ellison did with his Dream Corridor work? Different artists working from either published or original works of yours, in, say, a six-issue collection. Very Vertigo, I think....
I really wouldn't want to see my prose work adapated for comics. Film, yes. Comics, no. Anyway, John won't be editing at DC.