netmouse: Firefly, natch. (Big Damn Heroes)
netmouse ([personal profile] netmouse) wrote2008-02-05 08:18 am

Firefly novel from Brust: free for the reading

[livejournal.com profile] skzbrust has released as fanfic his Firefly novel, My Own Kind Of Freedom, under a creative commons license.

I had the unique experience of copyediting an early draft of the novel with Steve, unique in that we sat on the phone, he in Nevada, I in Michigan, and discussed how to best fix all the errors and problems spots I identified (we were using collaborative software, both viewing a document as I was changing it). Usually a copyeditor only gets to highlight and query, not knowing how the author will respond to each point. I got to sit there and get confirmation of my corrections and also see the process when the author said, "You know, that whole section doesn't make sense, and it's because I left out this part I meant to put in the last chapter. Let's go back and do that."

It was a joy to work with Brust on that project, and I hope everyone enjoys the book as much as he clearly enjoyed writing it and I enjoyed editing it. Actually, I'm sure you will-- Steve's special delight during our collaboration was in hearing me chuckle and finding out where what he wrote worked. And it does. :)

[identity profile] aiela.livejournal.com 2008-02-05 02:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I am looking forward to reading it. At the time he read from it at ConFusion I hadn't even -seen- Firefly, and I think it was listening to him read the chapter or so he read that actually got me interested in checking it out for the first time.

Now that I've seen it all, I'm really excited to read the whole novel.