Yurek Rutz in Triplicate
December 13, 1998
4:11 p.m.
Comment on the next US dollar piece. My choices were designs #100 and #96.   How about a quick plug for someone I barely know? I read David Marusek's story "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz" (January Asimov's) and just loved it. It's completely impossible to describe, and perhaps holds just a trace of about everything SF is supposed to be. I met David at Worldcon a couple years ago, and found him to be a wonderful person behind a very quiet exterior, so I could almost imagine him telling this story as it went. The story-a-beast from my last entry is not yet dead, but it's looking a little ragged around the gills. For the past week, I've been letting it run, expanding it to over 8,000 words just to capture everything about it that wanted to come out of me. I knew it would never work at that length, of course, and I think that knowledge was what was getting me so constipated. I didn't want to let it go long, so I kept trying to tighten here, and tighten there. I knew the "plot", you know? And when an idea came at me that didn't fit the plot, I kept shoving it into a corner or tucking it into a fold that already existed. But this story has so many stupid little nuances for me. It's quite personal, despite my attempts to write it from a totally different person's point of view. There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to get down on paper. So this week I let myself do that. When I wrote Friday's entry I had just about gotten to the maximum length in the story's history. Everything I thought about as I put myself into the character's head was on the page--sometimes multiple times! Once it was all there, I felt better, more confident. I've spent the past couple days acting like a sculptor, chipping away anything that doesn't look like story, stripping redundant stuff, playing switchblocks, and, of course, revelling in the tiny new disoveries I've made that will make the story stronger. I expect it'll be done in another day or two. And, of course, it's back down to a comfortable 5,000 words or so. Despite all the struggles I've had with this one, I've got to say I've really enjoyed writing it. If I hadn't enjoyed it, I would have set it aside a long time ago. It's just not prudent to work on something you're not enjoying, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . unless there's a contract associated with it. But even then, I would hope I never get so greedy or needy that I'm writing something I hate just for the money. (Note, I didn't say that I wouldn't do it, however!) Every story is different, though. I'll bet you the next one rolls off my fingertips in less than three days. And the one after takes two weeks. That's part of what makes the "job" fun, though. If they were all the same, there would be no reason to do it again, right? Congratulations to Tobias Buckell, who recently made his second sale. I'll let him tell you all about it.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives." Mark Twain |
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