And Then Sometimes a Plane Falls Out of the Sky

I just wrote a synopsis that gives away so much of the plot I feel like I spoilered myself. I am, apparently, never getting this right. At least it doesn’t sound idiotic. And actually includes, you know, information about the plot. As long as you read ‘information’ as ‘very little to do with the actual events of the novel’. Except for the end. It tells you how it ends. I haven’t even written that part yet, I just — okay, now I’m feeling traumatised about the content of the last book and also by the fact that I’m having serious qualms about fitting it all in the last book. And every one of my characters is saying, Don’t I deserve more pages? And I’m pleading with them, Those pages are all being taken up by the plot! And they’re like, So? We can wrap our stories around the plot. You like doing that. You like having the plot and character stuff and horror and the laughter all wound up together. Like that bit with the shoelace. You remember the bit with the shoelace. And I’m like, Oh my god! Shut up! I remember the bit with the shoelace and it’s in the freaking FOURTH book at this point when it was supposed to be in the middle of the third and I DO NOT HAVE TIME for you to be all funny and awesome and oh, I just had the best idea about your subplot, we could do this thing where [redacted]…

Rick: I’m sorry, I missed the rest of that. I went outside to see the plane fall out of the sky.
Me: A plane fell out of the sky?
Rick: No. Just roared over Gilligan’s house.
Me: Oh…

And then I accidentally edited part of the first book. Which I am now shivering in horror about. Seriously. That did not just happen. I finished that already. I am not going back.

I mean, it was just a comma, okay? And the repeated use of the word ‘tumbled’ that needed to be corrected. Cause I was double-checking a detail and I noticed it was in the last line of one chapter and the first of the next which… honestly, that’s a hell of a bizarre coincidence. But I’m also shocked at myself for not seeing it before. So I fixed it. Of course I fixed it.

But then I was struck by the urge to proofread the whole thing again because clearly there are still errors, oh my god, what will my hopefully-soon-to-exist publisher think of me? They’ll be like, ‘There really should be a comma there. And what’s with this gratuitous use of ‘tumbled’? We can’t have that kind of thing on our imprint.’ And then they won’t publish me on the grounds of ridiculousness.

And actually those are grounds that I can’t argue with at all. Especially right now.