Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

I had a conversation this weekend. It happens. In it I explained the boring drudgery of repeatedly going through a book you have written, making changes each time, and then going through it again to make sure that the changes are consistent with the existing text, and where it does not agree, making sure it does. Then you have to check again—a never ending hamster wheel of increasing frustration and detachment—you just can’t maintain your focus on fine details that well when the words start becoming old before your eyes.

During that conversation I did think how nice it would be if AI could be my continuity checker. AI would definitely make sure Charles Dance’s character in Alien 3 would not have the hilariously variable blood stains on his chest during the autopsy scene. So painful. (I just found a video of the scene and it only really varies once: large, then small, then large again, and then large the fourth and final time—but I’ve never forgotten the one part where it changes—the power of a continuity gaffe to register strongly in the mind and distract from the drama of a scene in this case; in writing it sticks a thumb in the eye of the reader and takes them out of the story, too many of those, and the story is abandoned.) Nowadays the bloodstains would be fixed in post, a little touch of CGI and all is seamless. That kind of continuity catastrophe is something as a writer you are desperate to avoid, and how you choose to avoid it affects the text, can improve it if done thoughtfully, with careful judgement. It just takes time. So I crushed the thought of using AI as heresy, and took ownership of the drudgery. I would do it, by gum! Human brain and time-taking care for the win. Currently.

This is the work that readers are blissfully unaware of. Yes, I put the full stop there, just because. Readers only notice this work if it is insufficient, and continuity gaffes or character inconsistencies take them out of the book. It has to be done, but the work is self-erasing: executed well it will never be noticed, because absence of problems is the point. But how did Charles Dance’s bloodstains get through the continuity vetting process? Did everyone involved in reviewing the scenes go snowblind to detail after thousands of views and miss it? Or was it noticed, but it was too late to reshoot so they said “screw it.” And went with what they had? (I suspect this might be the case.)

At some stage as a writer you have to say “screw it,” too, and stop. You can then either ask/pay someone to read the book over for you one last time to check for inconsistencies, or leave the book alone for a few months so you can approach the text refreshed and engaged, with enough distance to spot problems and fix them with minimal fuss. But in the end the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good, and you, the writer, have to trust your earlier work and set the manuscript free.

I’ve been getting bogged down by this process recently, my first world problem of having to work on something I love from the comfort of my own home. So hard. I had the unsurprising epiphany this weekend that if I want to finish this book and release it, I have to put in the work now, and stop being intimidated by it. And know when to stop. Focus on the goal, not the process. I liked that, it inspired me, so I wrote this blog instead of getting back to work.

Procrastination: if you’re going to do it, be professional about it!

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P.S. I finished watching season 2 of Altered Carbon a while back, and have revised my opinion of it upwards. It does have too much magical “sciencey stuff” that doesn’t even get an attempt at in-universe ‘plasma converter’ type explanation, it just is, and that is disappointing, but the character development is enjoyable, and the maligned change in Takeshi Kovacs from hard boiled one line delivery machine to conflicted romantic lead makes sense: he’s spent 30 years looking for his lady love, finds her, then has to fight for her, so it does make sense he will be more emotionally engaged and driven. (And still emotionally affected/altered by the finale of the first season, the consequences of which would have been devastating. So he has, gasp, evolved as a character!) I still aver that the idea of being able to kill the meths permanently is a joke, (but better than imagining they would actually be subject to any kind of law they did not already own, that part of season 1’s ending had me guffawing in derision) and season one did a better job of explaining how final death could work in specific circumstances, but if I was an all powerful meth I’d have a facility off network with an old back up waiting. I’d have multiples of those, on inhabited, and uninhabited worlds, on old converted colony ships planted in deep space, with specific activation criteria unrelated to any link to current data streams. Fifty years later one wakes up, discovers their other self has been destroyed, and slowly has to rebuild using buried assets linked only to that iteration. They would be reduced, but if careful they could recover, and would have the choice of announcing who they really are, or assuming a position in society under a new name, and slowly work their revenge on those who killed the former prime version of themselves. After hiring an individual (many, across multiple worlds) like Takeshi to solve a 50+ year old murder mystery. But that’s just me.

Of course the delicious irony would be a meth waking up at a 100 year interval on some random rock somewhere with an antiquated ship designed to take them to an inhabited planet, only to discover the entire civilization has been destroyed and there is nothing to return to. What then? An interesting short story piece I think. (And one I’m sure has been done dozens of times over with variation in sci-fi magazines and anthologies over the years.) Or they wake up and discover their hidden assets are either gone or worthless, for whatever reason, though another meth indulging in financial warfare would be the most likely culprit, and have to face a future with very little beyond what their last sleeve was stored with. That would be interesting to contemplate in terms of the meth’s possible reactions. A series of short stories around a theme, as three or four emergency back ups each wake up to the same circumstance, and react differently (and have to deal with whatever the previous back up left behind).

I could go on imagining altered carbon storylines, but guess what? This is more procrastination. See you next week, my friends!