My own self

Have you read these books? There are twelve to twenty pages of first-person prose narrative like that between every tiny exchange of dialogue or anything resembling an action-scene, and yet it is enticing like heck. Wolfe really knows how to write.

I have not, but now I'm intrigued. I do need more books...

They're pretty heavy-duty, what with the slow reveal of the world through a first-person narrative by a man writing his memoirs many decades after the story occurred, but they're as I said very well written. So I consider them to be worth the bother.

Hehe, it can't be any worse than what I'm writing at the moment. If I'd ever wanted to exact vengeance on Norwegian publishing houses, I'd submit the manuscript.

(No really! I can picture reviewers groaning about how the last thing the world needs is another book about a self-pitying young man who is obviously the mouthpiece of the author against a world that has wronged him. On the plus side, it's a lot more fun to write than it'll be to read. And since it's just 10 pages away from completion - I started writing it back in 2002 - I decided to finish it to get inspiration for other projects. And it seems to be working... but I'm digressing horribly, aren't I? )

Uh yeah, books.

2002? Self-pitying young man? I think I might have read a draft to an early chapter, then. Good going!

How long is it in total? I hesitate to commit to anything, but if's a reasonable length I could always volunteer to read it and endavour to supply you with some pseudo-constructive remarks along the way. (That is, if you'd return the favour, of course )

Well, it's not finished yet, and once it is, I plan to do some serious line editing of the whole thing (my reread of the old material confirmed this was badly needed, and it's sort of relaxing to know that I can just write along and not worry about how it actually reads until later).

Now, your feedback might be more useful before this process starts (which it already has, I do editing and write new material in parallel), but I expect the text to change so much that if you get it afterwards, you won't waste time commenting on stuff I was going to change anyway, and it'll probably be easier on the eyes as well.

Currently it's sitting at 82,000 words, but I expect that to shrink a little when the fat is trimmed, maybe as low as 80,000 depending on how the editing goes.

And that's a favour I'll return any day!

Also, if you fancy an episodic format, I could probably make each part (a chunck of about 30 pages) available to you as they are done.

Episodic format will probably make it seem more managable, but you do run the risk of my making comments that would not make sense if I'd read the entirety. Still, if you'd be okay with that, I say send away when you're ready. (Be aware, though, I'll have a bunch of papers to had in this autumn, so no guarantees I'll be quick on the feedback. But it'll come, eventually.)

Mine's at about 75,000 right now, but the first draft's not done (not written the ending yet), so it'll probably be about the size of yours or a bit longer once I've gotten through to the end. I suspect mine is a lot lighter a read, though, if likely also a much weaker one...

If I can iron out a small knot in the plot I could possibly be done with the end next week, and then I'll only need to restructure the first five chapters a bit before it'd be ready enough to be commented. If you'd like.

Ah, you were thinking you'd read the whole thing and then comment? We can do that. It'll take a little longer to get it to you that way, but it might well be worth it. Once the ending's done I plan to keep editing it while working on some new material - it's easier to edit than to write from scratch, but also less interesting, so I feel the best way is to do a little of both. And going back and forth between different texts will help keeing me motivated.

I'd kind of prefer to do it in smaller batches though - less work-intensive, which makes it feel less like (gasp) work, and more like fun. But if you prefer all at once, that's what I'll do.

Gah! Now I have no idea what I want!

What would you think of me if I said I was gay and liked to jerk off to Guybrush Threepwood?

(I swear, when you live with a woman, you just can't leave a laptop unattended. )

Anyway, I'd say whatever you'd prefer is OK with me, but I'm worried we'd get stuck in an infinite loop. So I'm going with the episodic format unless you make significant efforts to convince me otherwise.

"(I swear, when you live with a woman, you just can't leave a laptop unattended. )"

Mine doesn't have internet-access here... bwhahaha. (Say hi to her for me, will you?)

No significant efforts coming from my end, so send when you want. As for the versa of the vice (you know what I mean), do you want me to just email you mine in its entirety whenever I feel it is ready for commenting, or do you have other preferences?

Hi, woman.

Well, gift-wrap is always appreciated, but I'll settle for e-mail for practical reasons.

Right. I just meant, preferences regarding time you'll get it, or even if you maybe wanted episodic portions too rather than all at once. Also, you still use your vorlonempire-address, or do I need to get a new one to send to?

Hm, about 5 minutes before I start reading it would be good.

Just send whatever you're ready to send when you're ready to send it. You can send it to ops@intenLOLSPAMTRAPtor.com, obviously minus the stuff in caps. That's the address I check most often. The vorlon address isn't even in use (I think that e-mail service vanished under mysterious circumstances, kind of fitting really), it's only associated with my msn account, which I don't use either. I'm all asynchronous these days.

You might've misspelled that, because I sent an email there to test it and immediately got a "Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. Relay access denied"-thingie...

Right you are, it was .no, duh. Good thing us writers are used to rejection, eh?

Seems to have worked now?