Thursday, June 03, 2004

A topic is worth a thousand words

For future reference, when writing encyclopedic entries on SFnal matters, a thousand word limit is a real pain. I figured it would be, but great googaly moogaly, I never suspected how limiting it would be. My first draft entries--which I thought were bare bones and minimalist to begin with--turned out to be closer to 2,000 words in length. And the word limit was a hard one, with no wiggle room. I didn't trim. I hacked away with a machete. The hemmoraging was awful. Almost all my clever and groundbreaking insights fell away in agony. So if you're wondering why I don't discuss Themyscira, the formal name of Wonder Woman's home of Paradise Island and how it's named after the ancient Amazon capital on the shores of the Black Sea, or why the political crisis that faces the remnant Earth government in the "Paradise" chapter of Clifford Simak's City parallels the much smaller municipal political crisis that opens the book, well, blame the thousand word limit. Honestly, I could've written 5,000 words on these topics, easy.

Now I get to hold my breath waiting on Gary Westfahl to decide if they're acceptable or not...

Now Playing: Glasnots Brave Spirits

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