Two more Letters of Provenance up -- FINITY and MOTHER OF STORMS

Each of these collections has some unusual features.

FINITY was a mostly-on-screen production so there's less stuff, but there's one feature that seems to be drawing a little collector attention, and that's that the rough draft was all done on one phenomenally long drive (to and from San Antonio from Gunnison CO) on audio tape, and all those tapes are in there.

MOTHER OF STORMS seems to be my most popular book over the long run, and there's a lot of computer modeling that went into it, but because back in those days before the Web when 20 meg was big hard drive, 10,000 cells was a huge spreadsheet, and human beings still had tails, much of the modeling had a by-hand component, so there's quite a lot of handwritten and hand-developed stuff in there.

FINITY auction closes on March 7; MOTHER OF STORMS on March 8; the urls for them are:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150097697200&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:11

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150098166042&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:11

And the letters of provenance:

LETTER OF PROVENANCE regarding Materials Sold as the "Finity Collection"
To whom it may concern:
On March 7, 2007, I sold to [NEW OWNER] the following items which were used in the preparation of my novel, FINITY. To the best of my knowledge, this letter enumerates what each item is, its date of creation when known or an estimate when not known, its condition on March 7, 2007, and other information which may be pertinent to scholars and collectors.
If at some future time I discover further materials which would have been included in this collection if they had been found before March 7, 2007, they will be shipped to [NEW OWNER] at my expense, and with a similar letter of provenance, plus a revised version of this full letter.
PREAMBLE: This collection is sold as a unit. It is recommended that it be kept intact rather than broken up, particularly in light of [NEW OWNER]'s obligation to assist in scholarly access to these materials. (See the LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING).

TAG Short description Dating (as much as is known) Long description and commentary
A Ten standard audio cassette tapes, the entire rough draft of FINITY November 1997 Taped on my way from my home in Gunnison, CO, to the ASTR meeting in San Antonio. I needed to get a book done soon so I printed out the outline in one-sentence-or-clause-to-a-page 48 point type, masking-taped successive pages to the dashboard in tear-off order, and taped each scene as I drove, tossing the outline sheets into the back seat over my shoulder. (That's why none of them appear in this collection; every time I stopped for gas or a burger I cleared out the back seat). Thus FINITY is the novel of mine that most closely follows its original outline, and the whole rough draft is on tape. Most tapes and tape sides include at least some asides on other people's driving, odd confessions and rants triggered by driving on too much coffee, discussions of which little towns in central Texas are really nice and which are not,and so on. I went out of Gunnison via the southern, Saguache road during a heavy snowstorm, so there's a certain amount of raw fear in there too.
B Original corrected copyedit of FINITY Last week of September, 1998 First few pages are various set-ups for the printer, which are interesting if you like to see how manuscripts become books. The envelope in which it's enclosed carries the date 10/00, which is the date when it was returned to me. The main body of this is the material from which the main body of Item D was copied; front material differs between the two manuscripts.
C Very rough draft of FINITY, typed while transcribing tapes from Item A November and December 1998 When I got home, I just put the tapes, one after another, into my Walkman, and typed what was on them, rewriting and modifying as I went, and sometimes filling in where I didn't notice a tape had run out
D Backup photocopy of corrected copyedit of Finity Last week of September, 1998 Contains faint but legible copy of my responses to the copyeditor queries, which Item B does not. Nice lighthanded touch by the copyeditor on this one; this is about the point where I stopped fighting wars with copyeditors and simply tried to find ones I got along with (or maybe Tor got so tired of the battles that they only allocated my books to really courteous copyeditors)
E Corrected page proofs of FINITY First week of November, 1998 The pages that were actually corrected were returned to the publisher, but in those long ago affluent days, I used to make a backup copy of them, so those are the pages on top, followed by the originals that didn't require corrections. It's really quite surprising how many things need fixing even at the page proof stage.
F About 110 pages (of 379) of a cleanup draft of Finity March 1998 This is very close to the finished version (which is in items B and D), looks like leftover pages from the clean-up of the last awkward spots, inconsistencies, and typos. Not very many markings, so probably these are the pages I did not throw out; others were probably folded and discarded as I went.





LETTER OF PROVENANCE regarding Materials Sold as the "Mother of Storms Collection"
To whom it may concern:
On March 8, 2007, I sold to [NEW OWNER] the following items which were used in the preparation of my novel, MOTHER OF STORMS. To the best of my knowledge, this letter enumerates what each item is, its date of creation when known or an estimate when not known, its condition on March 8, 2007, and other information which may be pertinent to scholars and collectors.
If at some future time I discover further materials which would have been included in this collection if they had been found before March 8, 2007, they will be shipped to [NEW OWNER] at my expense, and with a similar letter of provenance, plus a revised version of this full letter.
PREAMBLE: This collection is sold as a unit. It is recommended that it be kept intact rather than broken up, particularly in light of [NEW OWNER]'s obligation to assist in scholarly access to these materials. (See the LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING).

TAG Short description Dating (as much as is known) Long description and commentary
A Audio microcassette on which I taped rough drafts of scenes from MOTHER OF STORMS June 1993 Taped on my way from Pittsburgh to my then-fiancee's home in Minneapolis. Sound quality is very poor – I had a hard time typing from this, volume was way too low and background noise much too high
B First full rough draft of MOTHER OF STORMS in manuscript form March 9, 1993 (print date) Wandering, odd, lots of loose plot threads, and contains many scenes and subplots cut from the final book. Just under 800 pages long. Many markings by me in the early pages but then fewer and fewer, probably because I gave up on it and started another draft
C Space saving format printout of Mother of Storms April through June 1993 (most pages have print dates) I printed these pages, or reprinted them, every time I had marked up some of them so thoroughly that I was on the verge of re-reading notes. So the later dates are probably the most-rewritten scenes. A more compact manuscript I could carry in a plastic bag (in rainy Pittsburgh spring) was much better for working on in coffee houses, grad student office, etc.
D Unmarked page proofs from Mother of Storms Print Date 2/7/94 These are the page proofs that did NOT have errors, and were therefore not marked and returned to the publisher. I noted as I was packing that I missed at least two pages that I had marked, so quite possibly they correspond to typos in the final version
E Notes from my agent for revisions. Also on the back of the pink cover sheet, my own notes to myself for revisions. 9/24/93 Printed copy of a memo from my agent that we passed through CompuServe. Usual mixture of spelling errors, blocking mistakes (people being in 2 places at same time and so on) and requests for more about the technology
F First draft of shorter version of MOTHER OF STORMS, including modifications requested by Tor editors sept 24, 1993 Actually typed and entered by Melissa Gibson, who did a great job on this and was really an extra editor, while I wrote the supplementary scenes that were then folded in to make this "first complete final". Very few markings on this copy; seems to have been purely archival (the book was delivered via email, my first book to go that way).
G Tor's copyedited and reconciled printout of shorter draft of MOTHER OF STORMS (this is the one the finished book was prepared from) Early October 1993 Extensive handwritten notes from nearly everyone involved in the production process, and of course copyediting marks. Similar to Item F but includes notes made in Item E.
H 144 page steno pad, green cover, smeared label says "Mother of storms nb-1, 8/10/92" 8-10-92 to at least July 1993 This was my basic working pad for most of the first nine months or more on the book. It traveled with me in Mexico while I was trying to get caught in a hurricane and looking over the little towns where much of the action happens. There's around 40 pages of rough drafts in my handwriting, maybe another 30 pages of outlining, and about 20 pages of notes and calculations toward building the weather model. There's also some scrawled notes from theatre history class and a couple of pages with notes about my then-upcoming wedding. Loose pages at the back from some other notebook are my notes on travel in Mexico (like plane/train/bus schedules, hotels, etc.) More or less this notebook lived in my pack or under my arm for most of the time between the dates; it's quite battered but all very legible.
I Editing copy of the long version of Mother of Storms Mid august 1993 This was the version to which I applied Patrick Nielsen Hayden's editorial notes (Item ) in preparation for putting together the short version. (Long version was about 207,000 words, short version about 186,000, and Patrick was right, by the way, the 10% cut in length was a very good idea – I prefer the short version myself). Pages are in somewhat scrambled order because I was sending part of them off with Melissa Gibson to have corrections entered, and writing supplementary material (mostly bridges to cover the cuts) at home with the others. Most of the pages seem to be there but there may be a few missing. Some are very battered, having made a few too many trips in grad student backpacks, while others are in pretty good shape.
J Printout of cover art for 1st British paperback, with art director notes Early 1996 I was getting along very well with Millenium/Orion in those days, and they very nicely sent this copy for my comments. The art director had already made notes to fix everything that wasn't quite perfect. This cover was later replaced with one that showed a tornado; I always preferred this one.
`K Red steno pad, 80 pages, written on front and back of many sheets June 1993 Road pad for working on Mother of Storms on an extended consulting trip to California. Lots of editorial notes (many of which were transcribed into Item C). It had become clear that the original outlined ending to the novel – and then just as the storms subside in the northern hemisphere, they start in the southern, and everyone wearily turns to coping some more – was totally unacceptable to Tor, so I had written a draft (Items C and B) in which the highly improbable space mission turned Louis Tynan into a god and saved the Earth. I wrote the mission first and then did the calculations, in this notebook, making them work out plausibly (imagine my relief that they did). There are also some consulting notes which are proprietary and would require permission other than mine to quote, and a few scribbled notes – nothing significant – pertaining to a meeting with Buzz Aldrin, which would also require permission besides mine to quote (there's nothing written or drawn by Buzz in this item)
L Bookmark and brochure to promote the initial release of Mother of Storms May 1994 Announces the July 1994 release. Amusingly 1990s in its graphic style, and boldly proclaims that Mother of Storms will be promoted NOT JUST ONLINE BUT ON THE INTERNET!
M three pages torn from a steno pad that are the earliest notes I have about Mother of Storms Probably October 1991 The initial list was just some research that had to be done to establish feasibility, and a list of topics to be addressed. All this was prompted by NOAA having released some of its simpler weather models for general use, but there's nothing about that in these notes
N Patrick Nielsen Hayden's notes toward cutting the long draft to the short draft for Mother of Storms August 17, 1993 These may be the best set of editorial notes I ever got from anyone; detailed and very thoughtful. I worked with them at my elbow as I prepared the final, shorter draft, and in many cases scribbled notes on this copy, so that there are many marginal entries in my handwriting
O old mixed research file 1992-93 Mostly this is stuff I kept around, I think because I used it off and on – a receipt from a hotel that was fictionalized into the book (the receipt brought back memories somehow), map of the city of Oaxaca, a couple of scientific papers with bearings on seabed clathrates
P Page proofs for paperback edition of Mother of Storms January 1995 I don't see any missing pages so I guess I had no corrections; copy is unmarked
Q Cover flats for the German edition with a note from my agent In envelope postmarked 11/21/95 Eventually this did become the German cover
R Monthly planner book used to schedule the events of 2028 for Mother of Storms early summer 1993 Eventually the whole thing got so complex I just laid it out on a calendar by hand; this gives a quick summary of who is where when and doing what
S Map of the Pacific Ocean with successive daily positions of Hurricane Clem and a few daughter hurricanes penciled in January 1993 Done using the modeling output from Items T and U. This was how I kept track of the day by day events for the imaginary summer of 2028; hand plotted because I didn't have any graphics software that could do this sort of thing
T Hand pasted chart (assembled from 8 1/2 x 11 paper) giving position and strength of Hurricane Clem from model output December 1992 or January 1993 This was the master chart I used in conjunction with the map (Item S). As you can see from the picture, it's about half by-hand and about half spreadsheet calculations, all pasted together on a sheet of layout paper. Very worn – it got carried everywhere and used constantly – but mostly intact. Gives wind velocities at eyewall, and then radii at which various Beaufort scale winds occur, plus position of hurricane and various other stuff; geographic data is pencilled in
U About 15 pages of modeling output from various preliminary models November through December 1992 Numeric weather models are built like any other models, as series of modules that feed each other. My little Mac SE wasn't up to processing one big Excel spreadsheet, so I would build a preliminary model, export the data, and then put that into the next stage of the model. These models cover ocean surface temperature, wind force, and some other thermodynamic stuff.