Thursday, September 19, 2013

Author Time is a real and weird thing

By Steve Weddle

And speaking of time shifting, my chat with Alec Cizak airs today at KMSU at 10:30 am Central Time.

Why is it Eastern and Central and Pacific? Does anyone say Eastern and Western? Atlantic and Pacific? And what's what Mountain Time Zone? It's like that woman in the corporate meeting who has three things to tell you -- "First, I'd like to start with" and then launches into "and B, we need to" and ends with "and finally."

"The history of time in the United States began in 1883."

So one of the weird things being an "Author" and not a writer, aside from never again having to pay for books, alcohol, or housing, is knowing things you can't share.

http://heyauthor.tumblr.com/image/25641914783
When you sell your book rights to the French or the Venetians or the Czechs, you've got a lag time of when you can make that announcement. Your agent will call or email and tell you about it. You'll up it or down it. Then the deal will get nailed down. But you can't say anything until X happens -- papers get signed, proposals accepted, clauses struck, etc. So you're sitting on news you can't announce.

As a reader, I never noticed the lag or, to be honest, really gave two poops about it. But as an author, well, you want to post it up there for folks. You want to let people share the news with you. "Hey, people who are traveling with me on this journey, look at this cool building over there." Only, you're the only one who can see it right now. In a few weeks, you'll be allowed to point it out. "Pleased to announce we've sold Aleutian rights to CYBORG LESBIAN VAMPIRE ASSASSINS."

Or you'll get a nice review you can't share until the magazine is printed in a few weeks. Or you just talked to Marc Edwards at Dark Tiddlings Studios about a movie adaptation of your book to appear, possibly maybe, on the Ovation channel in 2016. Or a thousand other things.

As an author, you get excited and you want to share it with your friends and neighbors (Twitter, GeoCities, LiveJournal, Facebook), but you can't. Instead, you make vague references that might lead people to think you're either phony or a butthead. Or both.

It's weird.

And then you go out on book tours to talk about your "new" book that is out, a book you started writing seven years ago and finished two years back. And people ask you questions about characters you've forgotten. Or plot points.

Because you're writing the third book in the series and only the first one is out. And, in your mind, that waiter the interviewer is asking about died six months ago. Which, um, you know, you probably shouldn't mention.

Add to it that you're probably writing about a universe that doesn't exist in real time -- either it's an alternate now or it's 1863 Nebraska -- WHEN THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE STANDARD TIME.

But, you know, we already have Eastern and Pacific and Mountain time zones. Just add in Author Time.

Because the train for "Standard Time" has left the station. Or, you know, it's about to leave five minutes ago.

2 comments:

Gerard Brennan said...

Great post! I'm going to refer to my personal author time as GBMT.

gb

David Cranmer said...

I do have news about a book coming out in France... can't wait to share it with you, Steve. Honest to goodness. A few more weeks at the most.