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Birthdays For The Dead

Stuart MacBride lives in the North East of Scotland, where he writes gruesome crime novels and grows gruesome potatoes.

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Sunday, April 23, 2006

Seven days

Yup, it's now officially one week till my deadline for handing in NDC, and the forecast is: 'Not A Bloody Chance!' Which is a shame, but short of pulling several all night writing stints there's no way I'll make 150,000 words. And even if I did try to stay awake that long, it's likely I'll just wake up at four in the morning to find most of the new words have been made by my forehead impacting on the keyboard. And it's hellishly hard to clean drool out from round the spacebar.

Plus it's getting a bit hard to concentrate: since the surgery I've had the same bloody headache, all day, every day. With that and feeling sick, it's a bit like having a permanent hangover, only without the nice bit of getting drunk first. So the words are coming slower, and slower, and s l o w e r . . . I'm going to get such a spanking when I go down to sign the contract for books 4, 5 and 6. And not the fun slap and tickle kind either. *sigh*

Yesterday didn't help either: morning spent picking a huge chunk of metal up from the vets, then a couple of hours in town getting She Who Must Look Less Scruffy At Work a new black suit, and then back to Chez MacBride to play host to Googling Brother and his family. He'd brought three quarters of the EC Pizza Mountain with him, which we all managed to eat while watching a DVD of the new King Kong. Which was... Well, lets just say it needs a bloody good edit in the same way that Peter Jackson needs a bloody good slap. SIL Kim's one word review: 'Pants'. I didn't think it was quite that bad, but it was bloody ridiculous.

Still, a fun enough way to spend an afternoon. The only thing missing was a whole pile of beer, but then booze and I aren't seeing eye-to-eye at the moment. Possibly because of the permanent hangover thing. Mind you, I can just bend down and stand up quickly: that's a bit like being very, very drunk.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pretend to do some work.

10 Comments:

At 6:01 pm, Blogger Sandra Ruttan said...

I thought Irn Bru or whateveryacallit was supposed to help with hangovers.

Feel better, do you worst, I'm sure everyone will be very understanding. Except certain fans, who shall remain nameless.

 
At 8:13 pm, Blogger Kevin Wignall said...

Stuart, you really need to address this protestant work ethic of yours. Seriously, no one in publishing actually takes deadlines seriously. I handed in my second UK book seven months after the deadline and everyone was cool - in fact they even talked about it at the sales conference without having the first idea what it was about.

Breathe in... and relax.

 
At 9:39 am, Blogger Sal3112 said...

Just remember, you can breathe out as well... and don't relax too much or you might find a funny smelling puddle beside your feet.

 
At 5:09 pm, Anonymous Val McDermid said...

What's the obsession with numbers? Is it a boy thing? I'm not going to say size doesn't matter, because it does. But here's what really matters about size. A book is as long as it is. It has an organic length that is unique to itself. The new book might -- gasp -- only actually need to be 143,679 words long. OTOH, it might be 164,223, which will be more of a problem.
Sorry about the headache. Have you tried hitting your thumb with a hammmer? Because of the hierarchy of pain, your head will stop hurting instantly.
Happy writing.

 
At 6:07 pm, Blogger Stuart MacBride said...

Hmm, hang on a minute Val and I'll try it...





'bang'

AYAFUCKER!






Nope, head still hurts... and so does the thumb. Damn.

I think my ‘number of words’ worry is down to it being in the contract. It says the book has to be 150,000 so that's what I have to deliver, even though Jane and Sarah have already told me not to worry about it: they won't throw a fit if it's 10 or 15K shorter or longer.

But I've got this thing about honoring the letter contract and I think the little voices in my head have been taking that into account. As soon as they heard Dying Light had to be 150K they provided enough story to make 150,347 words. OK, I edited it down about 30K from there, but it came in uncannily close to the contractual figure.

Or it could just be that I've turned into some sort of word counting freak?

 
At 6:17 pm, Blogger Stuart MacBride said...

Seven months Kevin? There is no way in bacon-flavoured Hell I could do that: my uber-editor Jane is off learning 150 ways to kill a man with a spoon in a Berber Death Camp* right now. She’d have my man-bits off in a second.

* Not affiliated with Butlins

 
At 7:40 pm, Blogger Kevin Wignall said...

Has to be said, when I mentioned the 150k word length to Sarah, she shook her head in a weary way that suggested they were already regretting stipulating any kind of length.

Trust me, they feel the same about the deadline. You're the talent, Stuart, keeping them waiting will just make them love you more.

 
At 11:13 pm, Blogger Stuart MacBride said...

Ha! "Talent"

Hahahahahahahahaha! Hee hee! Bwahahahahahahaaaa...

 
At 8:18 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Honouring the contract to the letter, er, Mr MacB? You haven't seen the new contract yet. It's not too late to add:

The Author will shave off his beard and call himself `Susan' during all publicity tours.

He will undertake to bare his arse on publication of the hardback in a public place in Aberdeen, whilst singing a medley of Neil Diamond classics.

p

 
At 7:13 pm, Blogger Stuart MacBride said...

You're in trouble Mr P! See when I see you next, you're going to wish you'd been born taller!

 
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