Thanks, deb. Anyone tired of my neediness, look away! Nothing to see here!

The cockpit smells like fireworks and sawdust; the whispy smell-echo of explosions that occurred an hour earlier. The control panel appears to have been lifted from a trashcan by an angry raccoon searching for sustenance. It’s scratched, dented, crusty in spots. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, my feet don’t touch the floor and I have to lean forward to reach the steering wheel. I feel like Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann being swallowed by that really big rocking chair.

John Gray’s eyes twinkle accomodation as he tells me it’s a go for launch, and Kristen raises an eyebrow and grins. I imagine them steadying themselves as I grab the wheel. I’m the Sally Ride of this particular spaceship, which is anchored to a soundstage on Pico Boulevard at 20th Century Fox Studios.

It took us two months, eight thousand postcards, about five thousand dollars, and four nervous breakdowns to get to this soundstage, which is really just across town on the West side of Los Angeles.

Firefly was a scifi show in danger of cancellation before the first episode ever aired. It was created by Joss Whedon, teevee writer extraordinaire, made semi-famous for creating the cult television shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. My friend Kristen and I read the script for the pilot episode of Firefly months before it was broadcast. We agreed that the show was one big nocturnal emission on sheets of milquetoast. Having been delirious fangurls of Whedon’s previous creations, we were at first disappointed by our fallen hero, and then sort of reveling in juicy mirth similar to that of every non-New Yorker’s glee when the Yankees lose a big game.

If you asked us then if we’d end up spending the holidays feverishly mounting a campaign to save this show from its inevitable cancellation, we would’ve asked you for a hit of that fine crack you had obviously been smoking. What we hadn’t counted on was a guilt-inducing birthday gift, a plea for help from a worried wife, and our own abilities to lead an army of fangeeks into battle.

Susan, sounds like you did well, and that it went well. Like Amy, nothing you said sounded remotely trouble-makingish, although I find myself wondering who the editor at Tor is (I know a few of them, at the senior level).

Anna Genoese--she's an Assistant Editor, runs their paranormal romance list, and edits women's fiction and dark fantasy.

Oh, and re paranormal? Apparently, the market is glutted. Don't make Jack into a werewolf just yet.

Heh. Word at this conference was "Paranormals are selling like hotcakes! Christine Feehan! Christine Feehan! Laurell K. Hamilton!" Though Anna Genoese hinted that vampires were getting overdone, and PLEASE keep the blond Tolkienesque elves in your private fantasies but out of any books you pitch to her.

Go for it, Allyson.

Allyson, I think you're going in the right direction, but it's a tad overwritten in spots. Mostly minor stuff--if I were your editor, I'd take "accommodation" out of the first sentence of the second paragraph, tighten up the ending of the next-to-last paragraph, and stuff like that.

but it's a tad overwritten in spots

This is my worst habit. I get all Anne Rice and can describe a lamp for 14 pages.

This is my worst habit. I get all Anne Rice and can describe a lamp for 14 pages.

Knowing a bad habit is half the battle, because then you know what to look for on rewrite.

Signed,
Rough Drafts Never Include Description of Anything Other than People and Occasionally Horses, No Matter How Opulent or Exotic the Setting May Be

This:

I feel like Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann being swallowed by that really big rocking chair.

is a perfect line, because it's a perfect visual.

With Susan on a few places of it being, not so much overwritten as obscurely overwritten. It took me a second to get around and through "We agreed that the show was one big nocturnal emission on sheets of milquetoast." It's a fun sentence, but it stopped me cold: too much information, literally, to have to process, and in too personal a way of phrasing for it to have cut through my cranium on the first read.

When the descriptions of the physical surroundings are as crisp and clean as, say, that entire first paragraph, anything that runs too far in the other direction ends up reading as muddled. I'd stick with really straightforward in the introductory pieces, personally, because a) using them sparsely adds to the punchiness when you actually do use them, and b) an introductory or framing bit should always be clean. (Um, that's clean as in clear, not clean as in non-porny...)

Also with Susan on "accommodation". And with her, as well, on the sense that it's headed where I think you want it to be.

Noted. I think I'm going to write furiously through, get the whole story out, put it aside, write the next thing, then pull this one back out of file.

There's places where I've sort of mentally noted that I need to be cleaner, and I'm sure there's a lot I've missed. I'm more concerned about keeping the car on the road, this is such a monstrous, windy piece.

I think I love the writing-furiously thing. Because hell, if it's there? Pruning and/or retrofit, not such a big thing, or rather, not such a daunting thing. And all kinds of willing betas out here.

Asleep on feet, and keeling. And later today, Teppy posts a new theme/drabble/topic thing.

Allyson, agreeing with the tightening and making clearer. Without losing that breathless impetus the piece has, the sense of excitement about being on set. And my inner line-editor is screaming that "wispy" has no 'h'.

Allyson, I should be writing an essay and not skimming here at all, but I really wish I could read the rest of that. It may be that it could be tighter, but I didn't notice that; it really grabbed me, right from "fireworks and sawdust".