SFFWorld is currently running a giveaway for a complete set of The Clan Chronicles. Link below the article
The beautiful thing about completing a story, Younger Self, be it short, long, or, in our case, a series of nine books?
Closure. We’re done after all these years!
What do you mean, is it perfect?
Sort of. “Perfect,” you’ll learn, is an ever-moving target. I’ve grown to prefer “as close as time permits” a Peter Jackson quote, likely muddled, from one of the extended LoTRs films. You’ll love them, Younger Self. Trust me. I wish I could see them for the first time again too—but that’s not why we’re here. I like this definition because it takes into account the importance of actually getting the thing done so whatever else happens next, be it a film release or a book to print, can take place.
Younger Self? This means your work can’t be perfect. It will never be. Believe me about this. No matter how many passes you make, or how many other trained and professional eyeballs go over every word?
The first page you open of your shiny new printed book will have a typo or something else cringe-worthy. Think I’m making that up? Go try it.
::pause to envision Younger Self running to that first box of new books, choosing the top left copy, tenderly opening at random to page 142, then crying out in dismay: it’s supposed to be TURRNED, not TURNED!::
Told you so.
Go ahead. Keep trying for perfection, Younger Self. Grin with glee when you find something everyone else missed before the book goes to press. Pat yourself on the back, because you can’t help but try as hard as you can. Just try not to weep every time you find what you messed up.
Now we have that settled, Younger Self, it’s time for the rest of it. I, having gone back through everything you’ve written about the Clan and Sira and Morgan etc. have some bad news.
You messed up a few times.
::pause to envision the stunned outrage of Younger Self, followed by a suspicious look::
Denial’s to be expected, but the proof is in print. Let me tell you what I wish you’d known then.
Don’t make up names that make you spit when you read them.
Yes, I know it took you a while to figure it out, and you did, but there were several instances I look back upon now and, well, regrets abound. Checking for Spit has become a Protocol.
Oh, and don’t make up names that sound VERY rude when you read them in public.
I know Sheila told you that already—as in her First Revision Request. Worth the reminder. One shudders.
Know who is related to whom. You didn’t bother, did you? That left me with a messed up geneology for the Clan, Younger Self, and I had to do some quick thinking to get around it.
Here’s a good one. ::sound of rustling paper::What can I say, Younger Self, I’ve a pile here. We probably won’t get through half. Right. Gods. If you call the back end of a starship the stern, don’t call the front aft. It’s not right. I don’t know when you starting doing it, but Roger noticed it this morning—yes, today—and broke out laughing. You reach the stern by going aft. The front should be the bow or prow or front.
Dingbat.
It doesn’t matter that no one’s brought it up until now, you’ve done it. More than once. Now I’m the one who’ll have to grovel in front of nautical folks. (Who may well have laughed in private already.)
Then there’s Deneb. Nice easy name to remember, right? Is that why it keeps popping up? For that matter, Brillian brandy. Prawlies. And did you keep them in the Trade Pact? NO! Because of you, Younger Self, being too lazy to make up entirely NEW names for things back then, I’m stuck with those and other terms as I write in Esen’s part of the universe. It’s going to be complicated.
Your fault.
As is your total lack of record-keeping back when. Saying you didn’t plan to write more about the Clan is no excuse. I had to study my own books! Not to mention open stacks of dusty file boxes and scour every scrap of scrunched up paper in case you’d left a clue someplace. After all of that, I had to ask for help. Thank goodness my readers are more thorough than you.
Yes, Younger Self, we have readers. You are young, aren’t you?
Fear not, you learned to do better, but that didn’t help me now, with the Clan. A Thousand Words for Stranger was your doing, Younger Self, not mine.
Then, you just had to have Sira et al invoke “Ossirus.” Why? ::pauses to bang head on desk:: Why? Why! The Clan didn’t have a religion and if they did, it certainly wouldn’t have sounded vaguely Egyptian!
Dingbat!
Yes, I dealt with it, but I shouldn’t have had to—never imply a deeper mythos unless you mean it!
::pause to envision Younger Self crossing her heart::
Let’s see, what else. I’d like to tell you not to have worried so much over whether you could write fantasy, Younger Self, but then you wouldn’t have worked as hard as you did and it might have sucked. I’d have preferred missing the years of rejections. You could have sent Thousand to Sheila at DAW first, but no. You didn’t believe you were worthy. ::smug:: We’re family now, you know. Still, the decade delay let you meet all those great people along the way and who knows? Maybe then wouldn’t have been the right time.
Or would have, and I might be writing my 30th novel for DAW right now and have a movie out and be FAMOUS!
Dingbat.
I’d tell you to use a standup desk, but they didn’t have them then. To start jogging before you were 50 would have been a bonus. What were you thinking, sitting all day and night? That’s not clever, Younger Self. Not Clever At All. And who pays for it? The person now jogging, that’s who. Not you.
Oh yes. Younger Self? If I could go back, today, and tell you one thing to do differently?
I’d tell you to relax. The story, your first story, will come to an end. We get it done, it’s wonderful (in my opinion) and yes, there’s closure. Despite the myriad things we could have done differently, especially if we had the chance to talk about it, perfect isn’t the point and never will be.
Getting better is.
And, Younger Self?
You’ll be glad to know I’m still working on that part.
Giveaway Details: http://www.sffworld.com/2017/09/giveaway-win-the-complete-clan-chronicles-series-by-julie-e-czerneda/
Author Bio: For twenty years, Canadian author/ former biologist Julie E. Czerneda has shared her curiosity about living things through her science fiction, published by DAW Books, NY. Julie’s also written fantasy, the first installments of her Night’s Edge series (DAW) A Turn of Light and A Play of Shadow, winning consecutive Aurora Awards (Canada’s Hugo) for Best English Novel. Julie’s edited/co-edited sixteen anthologies of SF/F, two Aurora winners, the latest being SFWA’s 2017 Nebula Award Showcase. Next out will be an anthology of original stories set in her Clan Chronicles series: Tales from Plexis, out in 2018. Her new SF novel, finale to that series, To Guard Against the Dark, lands in stores October 2017. When not jumping between wonderful blogs, Julie’s at work on something very special: her highly anticipated new Esen novel, Search Image (Fall 2018). Visit www.czerneda.com for more.
About the Series: The Clan Chronicles is set in a far future where a mutual Trade Pact encourages peaceful commerce among a multitude of alien and Human worlds. The alien Clan, humanoid in appearance, have been living in secrecy and wealth on Human worlds, relying on their innate ability to move through the M’hir and bypass normal space. The Clan bred to increase that power, only to learn its terrible price: females who can’t help but kill prospective mates. Sira di Sarc is the first female of her kind facing that reality. With the help of a Human starship captain, Jason Morgan, himself a talented telepath, Sira must find a morally acceptable solution before it’s too late. But with the Clan exposed, her time is running out. The Stratification trilogy follows Sira’s ancestor, Aryl Sarc, and shows how their power first came to be as well as how the Clan came to live in the Trade Pact. The Trade Pact trilogy is the story of Sira and Morgan, and the trouble facing the Clan. Reunification concludes the series, answering these question at last. Who are the Clan?
And what will be the fate of all?
I love this post! What a fun and humorously-written perspective on “what could we tell our younger selves.” The idea of doing things and getting them done, even if imperfectly, really resonated with me. It’s so hard to call something “finished,” sometimes, and resist the urge to keep tweaking. It’s something I’m personally working on and struggling with myself — I guess that means I need to send off my next scientific manuscript, imperfect or not! 🙂
It does indeed! Glad you enjoyed, Elizabeth.
Loved this reflection and advise to Younger Self! I can so relate to the “start jogging before 50”.
::laughs:: Yup yup. Though I remain a reluctant runner. I get bored. Skating and cycling have turned out to be more fun choices for me.