{"id":4463,"date":"2013-10-28T07:50:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T15:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=4463"},"modified":"2013-10-28T07:50:40","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T15:50:40","slug":"you-never-finish-a-book-you-only-abandon-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=4463","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;You never finish a book.  You only abandon it.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Done.<\/p>\n<p><b>Done.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Done.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-4464\" alt=\"Done\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Done.gif\" width=\"630\" height=\"583\" \/><\/a>Acknowledgments, check.\u00a0 Notes and References (137 of them), check. Official Tor edits\u2014 well, this puppy&#8217;s been through\u00a0 three different editors, two of whom left the building for various reasons before doing any actual editing, and the third of whom made no edits at all until the last 30 pages of\u00a0 a 400-page manuscript. Being somewhat less happy myself with the first 370, I went back and cut 2000 expository words from the draft inflicted on my beta readers, not to mention rejigging a couple of plot reveals for greater dramatic and thematic impact. So, call it largely self-edited; and call the editing done too.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">You know what&#8217;s really weird? I don&#8217;t even hate it any more. In fact, I think the ending kind of rocks, even if (actually, <em>because<\/em>) said ending might leave the less-careful readers among us with a few unanswered questions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Now I&#8217;m going to send this puppy off, and dig into the shitload of things I have to do before leaving for Nantes tomorrow (where I will be sitting with William Gibson on one side, and Orson Scott Card on the other. The nature of my anticipation\/trepidation towards each of these encounters is left as an exercise for the reader).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So while I&#8217;m packing, answering e-mails, and trying to figure out what died and left its bones down in the furnace where the fan keeps whacking against them several times per second, you might as well head over to SF-Signal and check out their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/archives\/2013\/10\/interview-peter-watts-talks-about-beyond-the-rift-william-fing-gibson-and-cyclopean-rabbits\/\"><em>Beyond the Rift<\/em> interview<\/a> if you haven&#8217;t done that already. Or maybe go a page or two sideways for a Hallowe&#8217;en <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/archives\/2013\/10\/short-fiction-friday-stories-that-go-bump-in-the-night-part-two\/\">review of &#8220;The Things&#8221;<\/a> that tries hard, but kinda misses the point.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Did I mention I was done?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Done. Done. Done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done done [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4463"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4474,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions\/4474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}