On Saturday night, I e-mailed Red Hood’s Revenge to my editor.  This is the time when we do the Snoopy dance.  (Or we would if I hadn’t immediately turned around and messed up my back.  Sigh.)

Overall, the book took just over a year from the day I started writing.  The manuscript came in at 91,000 words, but I suspect it will grow once I have the revision chat with my editor, not to mention feedback from my agent and a few others (including one Seanan McGuire, author of the forthcoming Rosemary and Rue [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], who reads scary fast and wrote things like “better than MERMAID”  and “brilliant.”  My ego, it is pleased.)

So how did I know the book was ready?  The easy answer is that my deadline told me.  Of course, the original deadline was 8/1, and I ended up asking for a two-week extension.  So what changed between the 1st and the 15th?  How could I tell this draft was the one I could turn in?

I knew I wouldn’t make the original deadline because I was aware of specific problems with the book.  I knew the character of Red Hood as I had written her was boring, and needed to be changed.  I knew the sequence of events near the end didn’t make sense, and I had to rework them.

That’s really all there is to it.  If I know there are particular problems I can fix, it’s my job to fix them.  This is very different from the vague sense of “I don’t know if this book is good enough, and what if it sucks and my editor drops me and I’ll never work in this town again???”  To paraphrase Douglas Adams, that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Every writer in the Universe has that.

I could go through my draft again for another month, adding a bit of description here and there, fixing typos and maybe changing the occasional confusing word or phrase.  But I’d just be tinkering.  I’m not actually working on the story anymore, I’m just polishing a few smudges.  I’m stalling.

This is not the same process I went through ten years ago.  Today, I trust myself to spot the huge, story-crippling flaws in my drafts.  Ten years ago, I was blind to them.  (As witnessed by some of my trunked novels.)  This is why my process back then required more beta readers, usually at least 4 other sets of eyes to help catch the gaping plotholes and other problems.

I still don’t have 20/20 vision with my own work.  I know my editor will point out problems that will have me kicking myself.  I know I’ll spend another few weeks rewriting Red Hood one last time to fix them.  If there ever comes a day when my editor tells me my story is perfect as is, I’ll know it’s time to find a new editor.

The goal isn’t to make the story perfect.  If that’s the standard you’re aiming for, you’ll never send it out.  The goal, at least for me, is to make it the best story I can.  The trick is recognizing when I’ve reached that point.

As a follow-up to the various discussions of race in SF/F, I wanted to talk about one of my own stumbling blocks as I was writing Red Hood’s Revenge.  This book takes place primarily in Talia’s home country of Arathea, described in earlier books as a desert culture with a vaguely middle-eastern flavor.  (Similar to the pseudo-European flavor of Lorindar.)

I wrote a scene in the first draft that I wasn’t happy with.  It involved the Arathean attitude toward homosexuality, which basically amounted to “Lesbian, outcast, unclean!”  I didn’t like the scene because it felt like I was getting preachy and building a big core conflict out of it.  While the characters’ sexualities are a part of who they are, it’s not the point of the book.

On the other hand, I wanted to keep it believable.  And here’s where my stereotypes screwed me over in my first draft, because we all know Arabs are hardline conservatives and terrorists who’ll stone you at the slightest sign of sexual “deviance.”

::Headdesk::

I’m pissed off that this crap was in my brain, and more pissed that it made its way onto the page.  It’s completely at odds with my own real-life experiences with people of middle eastern descent.  But it’s a message that gets reinforced every time I turn on the TV or catch up with news online.

So when it was time to rewrite, I took a step back.  True, some Arabs are extremists.  So are some Christians.  So are some Girl Scouts.  My job as the writer is to get past the cliches and the stereotypes and think about what’s right and true for these characters and this particular culture.

This is when I realized I was being an idiot.  Arathea is heavily influenced by fairy culture.  Read Sleeping Beauty — this is a land where fairies pop up at your kid’s birth to bestow blessings and curses alike.  I’ve established that fairies are all over the place in Arathea.  I’ve also hinted that fairies are … a bit more sexually liberal than most humans.

Put those two factors together, and Arathea is likely to be more open when it comes to sexuality.  Thanks to the fairy influence on Arathean culture, a woman who prefers other women is going to get about as much notice as a guy who prefers blondes to brunettes.

I’m not saying the book is now perfect.  I’ve spent a lot of time trying to construct a logical, believable desert culture, building on what’s out there without simply stealing the “shiny bits” from other cultures.  But I’m still a product of my own culture, and I’m sure there are things I’ve missed, mistakes and assumptions that have survived into the current draft.

I just wanted to put this particular example out there as one instance of my own struggles while writing the book.

Recommended reading: Appropriate Cultural Appropriation, by Nisi Shawl