I’ve shifted from convention mode to writing mode; the plan is to spend most of the next three days doing hopefully final revisions to my _Liminal Space_ novel, before sending it to my agent for his thoughts.
I’m not planning to change much, but I want to have a certain tone present through the book, and it’s not quite there yet, so I’m going through from the beginning to end, paragraph by paragraph, trying to add that effect, that atmosphere. We’ll see how it succeeds.
This morning, I’ve done what I usually do at least once while staying at a hotel; settled in with my laptop at the breakfast buffet, planning to work for a few hours and nibble as I go. Two chapters in so far, going well, I think. Mostly tiny tweaks, but I did add a new opening, which I’m going to have to revisit at the end of this process, see if it does what I’m hoping it will. We’ll see.
*****
Later, Maya would try to explain to her cousin Nuala, though words didn’t come close to holding enough space. “There was a grey fog surrounding me.”
In school, they’d both watched fog in holos of Old Earth, Solvida, had laughed together in that slightly tremulous, brave way, watching it creep over the high towers of San Francisco, so much taller than any structure they’d ever seen themselves. The fog crept, silent and smothering, and the city dissolved into mist and illusion.
“‘Everything seemed unreal – me, you, our friendship. You were gone, and I was alone. I made choices, and walked into them, stumbling over fog-shrouded obstacles on the way.”
Nuala asked, “Do you regret those choices?”
“Yes. No. Sometimes. I don’t know.”
*****