You know that familiar dream/nightmare, where you somehow manage to go to school/work without wearing any clothes? No idea how you got there, of course, because you would think that maybe the bus driver would notice and clue you in or something.
Well, I had a similar moment in real life last night. And, it was self-inflicted.
I had dinner and drinks with the esteemed Mr. Christopher Durso (editor of The Oasis of Filth series) to discuss my next book, For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun. I figured that to be fair to Chris, he should get to hear the whole story idea before blindly signing on to edit it.
So I had to tell him the whole story.
Before writing it.
God, that was terrifying.
It’s one thing to write a book, revise it, revise it again, get it to a point where you like it, then say, “Here you go, other humanoid lifeform! Please to be partaking in the reading of this manuscript! Jolly good! Off with you now!” And then you run away and hide in a corner until they come back and hopefully tell you that your book was not quite so bad as to make them physically gouge their eyes out while reading it.
But it is quite another thing to sit there, while someone is looking you in the eye, and try to explain to them a completely fantastical tale of sci fi craziness. [Aside: Even worse part… I think the bartender heard every single word. Actually, it may be much worse if he only heard parts of the story.]
But that’s what happened. I told him everything I have.
And there were a lot of gaps. Big gaps. King Kong-sized gaps. Where I just sort of mumbled, “Well, that’s all I know so far.”
I even told him the END. THE flippin END. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I haaaaaate revealing something before it is, in my mind, ready. Wow.
But he seemed to kinda maybe like it. And he’s on board to edit, so maybe he kinda more than liked it.
And better yet, we then had a long discussion about specific points of the first book in the series (which is in completed first draft form now), and he gave some great feedback on how to make it even better. Junkyards are bad, mkay?
So, what do you know? That didn’t suck at all.
Phew.