Re: David Gerrold - War with the Cthorr

David T. Bilek <davidbilek@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:b9pm14lvqu6r7cg3mrdgu1kltv1tk28s20@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> On Fri, 02 May 2008 06:49:06 -0400, Sea Wasp
> <seawaspObvious@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>David T. Bilek wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, right.  Glen Cook wrote a bunch of the Black Company and Dread
>>> Empire stuff while working on the line at a General Motors plant. 
>>> Not in his off hours after work but, quite literally, on the line.
>>
>>     This is a pretty unique case. I couldn't do that. Most writers I
>>     know 
>>could not. Asimov probably could. But I, for instance, generally need 
>>an open block of about 3-4 hours of time to make it worthwhile. I take
>>about an hour to get into the writing "zone" in my head. Once there, I
>>can fly -- over 1,000 words per hour -- but don't interrupt me.
> 
> I agree with this.  But are you honestly saying that you think the
> reason that David Gerrold hasn't finished A METHOD FOR MADNESS,
> despite having 16 years to work on it and despite claiming to have
> most of it done for many years, is that he had to do other things to
> earn money?
> 
> Again, not fini****ng a book is not a moral failing.  And, yes, having
> to do other things to earn money can delay a book.  But it does not
> delay a book that's mostly finished for SIXTEEN YEARS.  
> 
> All I'm saying is that there is something going on with A METHOD FOR
> MADNESS besides "didn't have time to finish it for sixteen years".
> Maybe he has indeed painted himself into a corner and can't get out.
> Maybe he has lost interest.  Maybe it's like when I put something off
> so long that I can't bear to face it because it means owning up to my
> procrastination.  Maybe he gets caught up with other things and
> forgets about it.  I have no idea.
> 
> But I don't believe it's because he's been too busy with other stuff
> to finish.  Do you really think it is?  That if he really wanted to he
> couldn't have found the time in 16 years to finish up a novel that is
> supposedly mostly done?
> 
> -David

Fini****ng would be relatively easy.  But fini****ng and having it be the 
book he wants it to be is less simple.  The series has gotten very 
complex, and the Chtorran ecology even more complex.  He wrote bits and 
pieces over the years, and was either not happy with them, or just didn't 
have the time and concentration to get them right.  ANd he spent a lot of 
time 'cat-vacuuming'.

But the bits that are done are at least as good as what went before, and 
now he's spending a lot of the time he spends on the book getting it in 
order so it flows properly, and working on one of two bits that are still 
fighting him.

cd
-- 
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T".  I like Earl 
Grey.