Blurb's up

Well, the editing process for Of the City of the Saved... has been rather tiring. But it appears now to be over. The novel's final text has been sent off to the publisher (who may make further changes to it, but hey...), the back cover blurb has been finalised, and all I have to do is sit back and wait for my complimentary copies to show up. (And the feedback from readers, of course.)

The editing was... surprisingly difficult, actually. Only 5 000 words (of 125 000) had to be cut in the end, so my occasional feelings that my offspring was being disembowelled before my eyes were needlessly melodramatic. (4% of someone's mass would constitute, at most, a striking haircut.) Still, the process kept leaving me feeling unsettled and vulnerable. It's very easily to be overly "luvvie" about it, but -- a story you've written is a very personal thing, and having people rummage round in it and pull bits out can be distressing.

Some of the cuts (although not very many of them, because they were mostly paragraphs here and there rather than entire scenes) will turn up as Extras on my website, once Of the City of the Saved... is published.

Coming up with the blurb was more fun, firstly because it involved creating something new, and secondly because I always enjoy writing to strict rules, believing that they loosen up the creativity like a kind of inspirational castor oil. The blurb had to be a certain length, to be immediately arresting, and to convey a clear idea of what the novel was a) like and b) about, without actually spoiling any of the plot. That's quite a strict specification.

My first approach was to try and summarise the salient points of the setup. Since OtCotS... is a huge, sprawling edifice of a book this was something of a challenge, and the result of that approach reads too densely for a back cover. (At only 75 words, the "About the Author" blurb was theoretically even more of a challenge: rather humiliatingly, I managed to cover everything important with a couple of them to spare.)

The cover blurb which I eventually came up with attempts (like the official Preview) to be an interesting and intriguing piece of writing in its own right. It should tease and titillate, tempting the reader to investigate between the covers. Feel free to judge for yourself whether or not it's successful in this.