Re: _Magician's Ward_ revised (was Re: Revising a first novel ten years later)

In article <f0bdi2$qt4$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
aahz@xxxxxxxxx (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

In article <132idn5ducl3g25@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Patricia C. Wrede <pwrede6492@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"Joel Polowin" <jpolowin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1177100698.283649.304150@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I was just re-reading _Mairelon The Magician_. Inside-cover blurb
from _Amazing Stories_: "Patricia Wrede has always had an effortless,
deft writing style..."

Funny. It doesn't sound like it's all *that* "effortless".

People who aren't writers have weird ideas about what writing is like.
Or maybe they just meant it was effortless to *read*, which would be
fine by me. Mairelon wasn't effortless, but it didn't get a lot of
after-the-fact revision; the one that was a right pain was "Magician's
Ward," which is the one where I had to scrap fourteen chapters or
thereabouts and basically start over. That was *painful*.

Been there; and it doth truly stinke. People really do think
that writing is a lazy life, in which you dawdle out of bed at
10 in the a.m., get a brilliant story complete from end to end
in a flash of inspiration while brushing your teeth, type it
out in the hour or two before lunch, then fly to Paris for
dinner and an overnight (which you later write off as tax
deductible) and stop in NY on your way home to visit your
agent about that multi-million-dollar movie deal . . .

At the time of the Great Arts Tax Rip-off of 1986 I had an
exchange by mail with my State Senator about a phrase
that had been slyly inserted into a footnote, the effect of
which would have been to treat writers just like gamblers
and stock-market investors -- that is, *people who do not
necessarily work for a living, which would have been a
disaster and which also indicated quite clearly that writers
are not seen as professionals but as speculators to whom
writing a book is just like -- and takes no more effort than
-- picking up your phone and calling your broker with
instructions to buy 1000 shares of, say, Google (Hell, wish
I had . . .).

As part of my argument that we are working people whose
business expenses are an ongoing part of a continuous
career and not individual stacks of chips placed on a
particular bet at the poker table, to be charged off against
the proceeds of that bet if it wins, I sent him an outline of
my typical work day, which he admitted to finding fairly
startling (he sent me back a schedule of one of *his*
typical work days -- Jeez, a politician with a sense of
humor!). He got it: he went on to help to get the sneaky
IRS footnote changed to save our collective necks.

That was, by the way and changing the subject a bit, the
one time that I've seen writers swing into action as a group
-- and I mean a *coordinated* group -- to lobby for the
protection of our interests and our livelihoods. The most
alert and persistent group to pursue the battle was not, I
regret to say, SFWA, but the Authors Guild. I've been a
grateful dues-paying member of AG ever since. They also
hold very good symposia and workshops for members, so
especially if you live in or near New York, I think a
membership is well worth the cost.

SMC
.

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