zaziel
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I'tr�m breit vula�oz�o ye spalla ei�tlin nel�ffnes pieqi aummit su berwegr'ra'ao.

Ghost, Part 2

Sunday, Aug. 18, 2002 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

I hate to tell ya, Dear Diary, but there are things I haven't told you. So many things. I really feel quite guilty about that, but I've been struggling with a vast disinclination to write in you, Dear Diary. Mostly because I've been doing so much writing elsewhere. Yes, I confess, I have not been true to only you, Diary Dear, but you knew that was the deal from the start....


I've been helping Blaine with the ghosting of the Rather Famous Author's new novel and (at Blaine's instigation) I have written scattered swatches of the book, plus four chapters that are wholly mine. (Blaine sez they're perfect and he's not going to change a word.) On the RFA's previous novel, I had helped Blaine rewrite his earlier drafts, but none of my work exceeded the customary tasks of a good conscientious editor (at least, according to my definition of a good conscientious editor, which I make up as I go along, unrepentantly unlettered autodidact that I am). But with this manuscript, I have become more of a collaborator than an editor.

(BTW, FYI: I am naked as I write this. I didn't forget that I promised I would tell you when I was naked. I'm sitting on the bed beside the Fiend -- he's naked too -- watching the penultimate round of the PGA championship. We haven't been doing anything carnal, that's not why we're naked, I just like gazing at the Fiend's bare backside as often as possible. And whenever I ask him to be naked, it's not surprising that he demands reciprocity. The Fiend is lying on his tummy, scribbling in a notebook, writing definitions for Ye�ghennish words, and making up new ones. He has faked up a recipe for a traditional dish eaten during the Eulhe-deimim N�vol fiesta, a celebration of the spring equinox, roughly analogous to Easter. The ingredients include a tortellini-like pasta, cruib�ta stuffed with alguma, a kind of goat cheese made with milk, pul'mo, from a meuolh�o, a goatish creature, but bipedal and striped like a zebra. Add dried, shredded meat, musgo, from a large amphibian called a tentou, and diced bits of a fungus called cab�leite -- if you've ever seen a Pig's Ear Gomphus, you know exactly what this looks like -- plus a few herbs and spices: dunl�, meinerais, parcela and gharanolh�o. And voil�! You have a pot of ma��linho. Best when served cold.)

It has been a bit of a challenge to write in a style different from my own. The RFA writes in a straightforward, colloquial voice, in rather plain language, so I have to squash my natural penchant for ornamentation. Also squashed is what Blaine calls my "predilection for sardonic whimsy" (the RFA seems to have no sense of irony) and my tendency to digress (the RFA likes to get straight to the point). Somewhat perversely, I'm enjoying these restraints, which shouldn't surprise, given my occasional inclinations to bondage. Blaine has raved with unreserved enthusiasm over my efforts, more than is due. I've done a workmanlike job, but nothing brilliant. I think the reason Blaine is acting so thrilled with my work is because he's looking for a writer to take on the RFA's ghost gig, and if I want the job, I believe I would be Blaine's first choice. Unfortunately, Blaine will not be making that choice, that will be done by the RFA and her editor. And I'm not sure that I can do the job, or that I even want it.

Blaine is coming to a point in his career where he needs to concentrate exclusively on his own writing. He has carved his novel, Two Thousand Pages Of Raw Genius And No Plot (aka Seraphim Fall) into three pieces, and is in the process of injecting a plot into it. He has managed to seduce the RFA's publisher (same house, but Blaine has a different editor, thank god) with visions of a block-buster trilogy with quadrilogy and quintilogy options. They're panting for him to finish the first draft of the first book. Unbeknownst to them, he has indeed finished the first draft. A copy of it is sitting in one of my Need To Be Done boxes, waiting for my blue-penciled input (except I don't use a blue pencil, unrepentantly unlettered autodidact that I am).

(BTW, FYI: I have three Need To Be Done boxes, two Need To Be Seen boxes, one Need To Be Filed box, one Need To Be Tossed box, and a Gulag box for whatever does not need to be done, seen, filed or tossed, but can't be chucked in the garbage without misgivings.)

Blaine doesn't want me to peek, not even the tiniest bit, into the the first volume of Seraphim Fall until we've finished writing the bulk of the RFA's new bestseller. So don't tell him that I've already done more than peek. I read the whole thing.

And? (You ask.)

It'll work under the title of Nine Hundred Pages Of Raw Genius And An Adequate Plot.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

last eleven:

Resurrection - Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Arts and Letters -
Friday, June 17, 2005
Domestic Obsessions -
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
The Kindness of Strangers -
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Gone -
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Coming Back, Little By Little -
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Effing Around -
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Explicably Yours -
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Things Too Innumerable To Mention -
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Mr. Armstrong -
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
The Pope in Our Kitchen -
Saturday, October 2, 2004



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Sa r'ji�o oss�vel meninonceiv �o poshik m�'�nch uscantebatahla o�r musiu o�r muiko.
Copyright � 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by gcs

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