by shukyou (äž»æ)
Dear Edward,
I received your latest round of edits with great interest. Astonishing interest. Unprecedented interest, in fact, because the edits themselves had no precedent either. In the seventeen years Iâve been publishing with Strauss & Baker â oh, Iâm so sorry, I forget that youâre BillionsOfBooks4U now, how clumsy of me to misremember the recent acquisition â I have never received edits of this particular kind.
Of course I appreciate all the typos caught and foolishly convoluted sentences pared down to size over the years, and I will entirely concede that the decision to cut the stepmother plot from How Fails the Heartless Hind and develop it more fully in Jackdawâs Last Crossing was the correct one. But you see, those were Ursulaâs decisions, and I trusted (and still do trust) Ursulaâs editorial opinions implicitly and explicitly. And yet, our fair Ursula took that ever-so-generous semi-involuntary offer of early retirement that accompanied the aforementioned merger, leaving her with no more creative input on this novel I am contracted to provide.
Which leaves you with me, and me with you.
I wonât bother with a full rewrite of the manuscript, especially since there appeared to be no objections centered around most of the content depicted. No, all that is acceptable and even marketable these days (provided of course that the individuals involved in such acts are not under the age of eighteen and do not even so much as mention a genital during it). I have, however, done my best to address here the five scenes that seem to have fallen least in line with the standards for whatever your expensive focus-group-obsessed business-school-graduate consultants believe is â and Iâll use your words here, so we have no misunderstandings â âmarketable contentâ.
I hope you find these substitutions suitable. If you check the comment history, you will find that I have heeded all of your notes and gone out of my way to make sure that every single one of your concerns has been addressed thoroughly.
Finally, my thoughts about a content warning? Sure, you should feel free to warn that my book has content, in that it contains things. It contains some words, even a few naughty ones. It contains ideas, though fewer now than it used to. But maybe more important is what it doesnât contain, which is a magical fetter that forces a person to keep reading even once theyâve decided they do not wish to continue. Every one of my books, guaranteed, contains the ability to close it at any point. Thatâs not even a premium feature. You get that for free.
Regards,
Cameron de la Rosa Bluesky | Substack | Instagram | Goodreads Hugo-winning author of âTime and Dame Blackshireâ and How Fails the Heartless Hind represented by Strauss & Baker (2009-2026)
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Read the rest of this story in the full issue, Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 120: [REDACTED]


















