DRAGONHAVEN redux
I did manage to finish reading the paperback proofs today in a great salad-dressing-spotted* hurrah over lunch. And they were either pretty clean or I’m losing my grip–which I imagine is what every author says upon reading unnaturally pristine proofs. The problem with being a compulsive proofs reader is that then it’s absolutely your own fault when you open your first copy of your new book or new, reset edition at random, and the very first thing you see is a sleep- and peace-of-mind-destroying typo. That you didn’t catch. That the publisher’s readers didn’t catch. That the businessman reading over your shoulder on the train didn’t catch.** That your dog didn’t catch. . . .
I still have to type up my successful catches, which means leafing through the pages again looking for red marks . . . and cringing at finding one or two or six glitches that I didn’t see when I was actually reading the thing, that I’m perversely seeing now, in the skimming process, because what does that mean about how many others there are? Sigh. This is one of the many moments in a professional writer’s life when you wonder why you didn’t go into sanitary engineering.
Almost all of my books have rather messy histories, one way or another. The commonest ‘oops’, which I’ve written about here before, is that most of them started as something else: BEAUTY, DEERSKIN, ROSE DAUGHTER, SUNSHINE, DRAGONHAVEN and CHALICE all started as short stories; OUTLAWS started as a (fairly) straightforward Robin Hood retelling for middle readers. Only SWORD, HERO and SPINDLE actually started life as novels. And the inadvertent short story method, once a mere quirk, has become a source of marital tension since (as I’ve also already told you) SUNSHINE, DRAGONHAVEN and CHALICE all started as FIRE short stories . . . short stories for the next volume of the ELEMENTALS series that Peter and I began with ELEMENTALS: WATER about a decade ago. And have got no farther with because I keep writing short stories that turn into novels.
After we, which is to say Peter, first had the idea for the ELEMENTALS series*** I can remember talking about which mythological critters and old folk tales we wanted to use, in which volume, and who got to tell which ones–I unceremoniously rammed Peter out of the way and planted my flag on one of his EARTH stories, and he graciously permitted this.† But for example both phoenix and dragon might go in either AIR or FIRE, and I could make a case for an EARTH dragon too. But we eventually decided on FIRE for both. Peter got phoenix. I got dragon.
I don’t remember the chronology very well any more. It was Peter who suggested a human child raising an orphaned baby dragon; possibly in a zoo situation; possibly the dragon had to be hidden from the authorities (why?). But it wasn’t till after we’d turned in WATER and both our American and UK editors had said yes, thanks, we’ll take it, but do you suppose you could have a few more boys in the next one†† that I began to think that the dragon-raiser didn’t absolutely have to be a girl, and therefore perhaps it could be a . . . boy. Peter suggested having to trundle the little dragon around in a wheelbarrow full of charcoal briquettes: that raising a baby dragon (it was Jake’s voice that first started calling his a dragonlet) was rather labour-intensive, because it had to be kept at quite a specific temperature, and it didn’t like electric blankets, it wanted fire. And it wanted company. Indeed it probably imprinted on its caretaker. . . .
And then we went to Australia for a holiday. I had already more or less decided that my dragon-and-boy story was going to take place in, cough cough, this world, with one or two minor changes like the (known) existence of dragons in it. Which meant they had to be from somewhere. Australia was perfect: lots of huge open hot almost-barren almost-empty spaces and lots of really wild flora and fauna. If anywhere could have bred dragons, it had to be Australia.†††
I also fell in love with kangaroos. And I loved all the joeys peering out of their mothers’ pouches, or cramming themselves back in when they clearly no longer fit. I went to several new- and old-books stores, and rummaged through their Nature and Local shelves for books on kangaroos from Australian publishers, figuring that this would be the only place I’d ever find them.‡ I hadn’t put kangaroos together with my dragon story yet, but I was thinking ‘I’m going to be able to use some of this in a story some day.’‡‡ And then I saw a programme on raising orphan kangaroos, about a woman who does joey rescue, and there was this wonderful shot of several of her orphans hanging in their blanket-swaddled fabric bags over the backs of furniture in her sitting room. It was at about this point I had my Eureka! moment about pouched dragons, and saw Jake putting a blob down his shirtfront, standing in front of its dead mother. . . .
* * *
* The problem with lovely fresh salad with crisp springy leaves is the carom.
** This does happen. I’m a shameless reader over strangers’ shoulders myself–it’s almost a game: Guess that Title. Not enough people on Southwest Trains or the London tube read books, but quite a few of them do, and if I have a choice I will try to arrange myself to be looking over the shoulder of one of them, so I can play my game. If I ever saw someone reading galleys I would have to find out what they were. If this necessitated getting off at the wrong stop and tripping the person so he/she would drop anything they were carrying, so be it. Most of the outcomes of this scenario are embarrassing, given my tastes in literature.
*** And I’ll tell you that story some day too. I should be keeping a list: How Mozart Found Me My Piano, How Chaos Gained A Piratical Ear, How the ELEMENTALS Series Came to Be, If It Would Only Become a Series.
† No, THE LOW ROAD is not one I got to 40,000 words on and set aside in despair. But PEGASUS, now well on its way to being a proper novel^ started as an AIR story . . . and so did BELLS OF MAZAHAN, which is in the 40,000 words and despair category.
^ And I’m saying I’m going to turn it in the end of next summer
†† Out of six WATER stories, five of them have female protagonists. I saw the justice of our editors’ suggestion at once, but my reaction was still, Boys? I don’t do boys. I say this about the hellhounds regularly.
††† I’m still hoping it has.
‡ Pardon me, you Australians, for stating the obvious, but Australia is such another world–this whole huge complex fascinating beautiful world that most of the rest of the planet–it seems to me–knows next to nothing about. I kind of branched out from kangaroos, in those bookstores–although I did mostly stay with natural history, with some aboriginal tales and art thrown in–and since I picked up a few books here and a few books there I didn’t realise till I had to drag them all out from under the bed and pack them quite how many there were. When we got to the airport with our assortment of bundles the young woman at the ticket counter was so overwhelmed she called her manager who told us–me–briskly that I owed them over two hundred English pounds in weight surcharge. Then he went away to ruin some other idiot’s day, and the young woman, looking pale and fraught, said, I can’t charge you all that money, I just can’t. Go on, go away, I’ll just put them through for you. –I hope her first novel is a best seller. Meanwhile I have quite a nice little collection of books on Australia.
‡‡ Although of course I’ll end up throwing most of it out. As I keep saying. I do the research, and then I throw it out. Sigh. I tell myself it’s still a necessary part of story development: it’s another version of knowing the rules so you can break them more convincingly.
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Oooh. Well, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, I LIVE for these posts. Yay!
I don’t actually have much to say about it, I’m just fascinated reading about the origins of your stories. :D
(And Australia IS weird. There are so many strange creatures there, and look at the people it produces! *winks at b_twin_1*
I really loved Oz. Maybe I’ll go back some day. When I’m wealthy, and can afford business class. Thirty hours on a plane . . . yeep.
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Thirty hours on a plane!? *dies* That would require *lots* of love. But it does look like such a fascinating place.
Well you get to stop off at Kuala Lumpur at 3 am while they refuel. But you can’t leave the airport.
To the best of my knowledge, there will be a Worldcon in Melbourne in 2010. I intend to go.
It’s not a 30 hr flight to USA. Less than 17 now to the West Coast :)
Well I don’t know but it took us something like 30 back and forth from England. But that includes connections–and standing around at 3 am in a kind of holding bay in Kuala Lumpur.
Unfortunately going to the UK it is longer. Some of that is to do with the stop over in Singapore or Malaysia.
So if you are on holiday go to USA first … then on to Oz later and the trip won’t seem as long ;)
Hey! I resemble that remark! *g*
Weird thing is that long haul flights don’t put me off. The lack of $$ does though. LOL I can read almost anywhere … except on a long haul flight. Not sure why. Might be related to the fact that I like to curl up in a chair to read and this is not really possible on a flight? Anyway…..
btw … lots of twins at the moment. Coming thick and fast. :)
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You know, if it’s things from Australia that you want, we can post them to you… have you tried macadamia nut butter?
Thank you! It has lots of CALORIES, right? I don’t do calories . . . or I save them for CHOCOLATE . . . I’m sure I’d LOVE macadamia nut butter . . . sigh.
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Calories? What calories? If I don’t read the label, they’re not there, right? :-)
Besides, it has healthy monounsaturated something or the other. Hang on… I’ll just check.
*reads energy content of macadamia nuts*
*dies*
Yeah, I love the euphemism ‘energy’.
You would like my Diet t shirt. Cookie crumbs have no calories, because they leak out when the cookies are broken. Food eaten off someone else’s plate has no calories because the calories belong to *them.* Etc. :)
Of *course* it has lots of calories. Most foods that *taste any good* do. ::sigh::
Well . . . I genuinely like broccoli and so on. I wouldn’t want to live without it EITHER. ‘Either’ being chocolate . . .
Do you have a picture of the t-shirt?
I was very excited about the book “French Women Don’t Get Fat”. (I figure being married to a Frenchman counts, right?) Up until the point where I realised that this involved a diet with significant modifications…
**Snork.** Sorry, the only things I might say about the exercise you can be presumed to get with a French husband would not be suitable to a family blog. . . .
I’d probably be violating copyright if I photo the t shirt. I’ll see if I can find it on the web.
Australia (Heck I’ve lived here most of my life except for a year interlude in central london) is a freaky place. I dare you to come down to Tasmania, do a 3 week tour and not have at least 3 or 4 new story ideas. I know for a fact that Tamora Pierce’s Broad Foot god in Realm of the Gods is based on the platypus, though she doesnt have kangaroos for some reason. (I’ll come over and mind hell hounds if you want…I worked in a vet surgery so squirts dont bother me).
When I lived on the high plains of eastern Colorado, where things are only green for a very short part of each year, I had a theory that it was the dragons which made everything so crispy brown the rest of the year. It was a delightful surprise that you put YOUR dragons not very far to the north of there.
I wonder what delightful surprises Chalice holds for us. (hellhounds?)
Tonight’s dinner included the garden’s first sugar snap peas. and vanilla custard on a melange of strawberries and raspberries. Bliss harvested in the garden … if we can’t have magic, I think nature and gardens are a great alternative.
I wonder what delightful surprises Chalice holds for us.
Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.
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Thought you’d like to know that the current mailing for the Science Fiction Book Club includes Dragonhaven. I received mine in today’s mail.
*****Australia is such another world–this whole huge complex fascinating beautiful world that most of the rest of the planet–it seems to me–knows next to nothing about.*****
I’d love to go. We talked about it many years ago, but the long, long plane flight put us off. I’m also a bit chicken about all the critters that live there — the most aggressive poisonous snakes in the world, crocodiles, lizards, nasty insects and spiders, great white sharks, holes in the ozone layer (I quite literally burn in 2 minutes in New York, so sunburn is a real concern), etc., etc. The northeastern US is extremely tame in comparison; maybe the occasional shy copperhead, or occasional brown recluse spider, very rare light earthquakes, hurricanes that mostly diminish by the time they get inland — that’s about it.
*****When we got to the airport with our assortment of bundles the young woman at the ticket counter was so overwhelmed*****
Oh, gods. Been there, done that. By now I’ve learned to ship stuff home by UPS a few days before leaving. No more breaking suitcases by cramming them full, or getting chest pains at airport connections at 5,000 feet because my carry-on luggage is insanely heavy. Books are one of my weaknesses, but sporting goods equipment and other odd things have been known to offend as well. On my way back from Antarctica I was seriously considering buying an Argentinian gaucho’s saddle, but didn’t quite find the time to go shopping in Buenos Aires for it before the plane left….
Judith
Back in the days when they didn’t WEIGH your carry on. I once had to unpack my knapsack–which was full of books of course–because it showed as SOLID to the xray.
Don’t forget black widows. Or we had black widows in Maine anyway.
I think it’s the wolf spider?, that is freaking HUGE, it’s the size of a small hairy dog and it lives in your CURTAINS, and it’s only a LITTLE BIT POISONOUS you don’t REALLY have to worry MUCH . . . mainly I coped with the mostly-at-a-distance Australian wildlife, but the huge hairy spider lurking in your very own sitting room was a bit much. . . .
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Most of our “dangerous creatures” that they like to go on and on about are really mostly shy and reclusive. They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. Especially in the southern half where we don’t get things like crocs. (Even USA has alligators so we aren’t alone with large carnivores……)
We have Wolf Spiders but you rarely see them. There are the range of Common Garden Huntsman spiders that look like a less hairy version of a tarantula. Non-venomous and excellent predictors of weather…… We leave them alone when they come inside. If they come into the bedroom they are told very *firmly* what the rules are and they behave very nicely. ;)
Re Sunburn: 30+ sunscreen. Especially if you are coming from an “indoor/low sunshine” environment. (Vampires probably have a much harder time dealing with the sunlight here…… ::snork:: )
Yes, I’ve seen a few alligators . . . okay, PREVENTING rant about idiot tourists . . .
Maybe it was a Huntsman. It was LARGE and HAIRY and it WAS IN THE SITTING ROOM CURTAINS. And I *thought* I was told it was mildly toxic, so if it bit me I wouldn’t die but I would be unhappy. Aside from being unhappy merely because bitten by a large hairy spider. I’ve learnt to cohabit with spiders, but nothing in England (or Maine) is CLOSE to the whole hairy tarantula thing. I’m forever fishing our little ones out of the bath. (And I was careful about reaching into the dark bits of my woodpile in Maine: that’s where black widows hide.)
*****Back in the days when they didn’t WEIGH your carry on.*****
I think we talked about this once before. In the US they still don’t do that for domestic flights. I haven’t flown international since — oh, maybe January 2004? — but they didn’t do it for us then, either, on either end of the flight, or in Argentina for the domestic flight. Maybe it’s a Brit thing.
***** I once had to unpack my knapsack–which was full of books of course–because it showed as SOLID to the xray.*****
(*LAUGH!*) Probably thought you were REALLY, REALLY strong, and importing/exporting large amounts of gold….
Judith
I think you’re right about having had this conversation, but I’ll add here that I obviously take the wrong internal flights. They’ve been trying to take my carryon away from me as too heavy on Boston-Maine flights for DECADES.
I am very bad with spiders of any size and would *DIE* if confronted with a toxic megaspider. Easy to avoid the jellyfish and probably easy to avoid the snakes, but spiders get everywhere. A cousin’s daughter went to Australia with her softball team a couple of years ago, and we made sure to give her Bill Bryson’s book about Australia so she’d know how many things there are to be leery of. :) She had a great time anyway.
LOL! Yes so did we.
Ooh, thanks for posting about writing (a little bit). I’m reading this over breakfast and its great to get an insight on little things about the story background, as you do it quite rarely (no I’m not screaming for more).
It doesn’t come out in words somehow. I may post about what I know of why. I may not . . . :)
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****I’m a shameless reader over strangers’ shoulders myself–it’s almost a game: Guess that Title.****
Yes, well, I am helpless in the face of someone else’s unidentified reading material, even if I have my own. And the same with bookshelves–”Pardon me, I missed what you were saying, I was reading your bookshelves . . .”. Call me a nosy reading person.
Do you consider yourself primarily a long-form writer? Or a writer who is put upon by stories that want a different structure than you planned for?
****I don’t do boys. I say this about the hellhounds regularly.****
The boys are different, and it’s not a breed-dependent thing. Bitches grow up and get a life, and boys are boys. One of the breed columnists in the AKC Gazette put it like this: the girls love you, but the boys are in love with you. I wish I’d said this; it really summarizes the difference. And of course there’s the other boy thing–only young once but juvenile forever. It’s a good thing you have two; they can be juvenile with each other.:D
Yes, well, I am helpless in the face of someone else’s unidentified reading material, even if I have my own. And the same with bookshelves–”Pardon me, I missed what you were saying, I was reading your bookshelves . . .”.
********** Yes! Me too exactly!!!!!
Call me a nosy reading person.
********* Call me anything you like . . . :)
Do you consider yourself primarily a long-form writer? Or a writer who is put upon by stories that want a different structure than you planned for?
********* I think I am long form. But I also think I’m slightly PLAGUED by long form because I CAN write short. When I’m allowed.
****I don’t do boys. I say this about the hellhounds regularly.****
The boys are different, and it’s not a breed-dependent thing. Bitches grow up and get a life, and boys are boys. One of the breed columnists in the AKC Gazette put it like this: the girls love you, but the boys are in love with you. I wish I’d said this; it really summarizes the difference.
*********** Hmm. I thought I was looking at the well known cross-gender thing: men and bitches, women and dogs. From the woman’s view.
And of course there’s the other boy thing–only young once but juvenile forever. It’s a good thing you have two; they can be juvenile with each other.:D
********** Ain’t that the truth. They’re going to be TWO YEARS OLD NEXT MONTH. I’m still waiting for ANYTHING resembling approaching adulthood! Our bitches were grown-ups long since! Granted Chaos is a lot worse than Darkness, but . . .
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*****One of the breed columnists in the AKC Gazette put it like this: the girls love you, but the boys are in love with you. I wish I’d said this; it really summarizes the difference.*****
I’d agree with that one. I’ve had two boys now, and there’s nothing quite like it, much as I adored my girls and adore my current girl. I’ve never — ever, in my entire life — been loved by anyone the way I was loved by the boy I lost eight weeks ago yesterday.
*****And of course there’s the other boy thing–only young once but juvenile forever.*****
I don’t know that I’d buy that one as a universal. My Dane dog grew up to be quite earnest and serious. Something of a saint when I got my Mastiff bitch puppy in terms of patience to his own detriment — I used to have to rescue him from her predations. He didn’t like to be teased in play, or have faces made at him, etc. — he took life very seriously indeed. A very, very good dog, very much missed six years after he has gone.
Judith
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Yes but you’re a woman. I suspect there is something about cross gender (at least in heterosexual animals!). I’ve seen one or two fabulously adoring bitches . . . to their male humans. And (some) stallions are *amazing* flirts . . . with women: mind-bogglingly, jaw-droppingly. To an extent I’ve never seen in male dogs, but it makes me more inclined to believe the people who suggest women/dogs and men/bitches are the love affairs.
This could be a very interesting discussion. :) I suspect it comes to the “alpha human” thing as well. But then again I’ve only had bitches and mares….. Belle is a one-person bitch. Mum can tell her to go around the sheep and she just looks at Mum like she is speaking french or something LOL
That’s part of the problem with stallions. They’ll listen to you but they aren’t yielding status to you. ON the other hand a man dumb enough to try to *force* a stallion to do anything . . . deserves what he gets.
And of course it depends on the stallion. I’ve only known a few, but golly they are *characters.* Some of it has to be just that they’re entire–but presumably it’s also that they were kept entire because they’re unusually excellent examples of horsehood, which probably means character too.
My brother the biologist tells me he has seen the cross-gender thing with parrots and people. I commented that you’d think the pheromones would be pretty different, and his answer was that once good old Mother Nature latched on to a good thing, why change it? But gender didn’t affect the way our boys related to us.
Sympathy to Judith on the loss of her boy.
Yes, I’ve heard that about parrots too–which are very intensely involved with their people.
I can’t tell with the hellhounds, the situation is too different from previous–including the obsessiveness bred by their damned digestion. But I’m absolutely sure about the flirtatiousness of stallions. And I’ve talked to other women who agree.
About looking for the red underlines in your galleys – if you invest in little sticky flags you can mark which page had the typo as you go along. I do this all the time when working on large documents, also good for any other lacunae you want to go back and fix a couple of weeks from now, but don’t currently have time. The flags save-and-re-use very nicely. Also good for try-it memos in recipe books, and so on. Post-it make them, but I’m sure they’re available in other brands if Post-it is not present in England.
Don’t do calories, Ha! The lemon bars are low-calorie?
I’m not a big fan of sticky notes. They crunch up or peel off. Copyeditors are addicted to post-its.
I SAVE UP calories for *known* delights. I’m trying not to acquire any NEW, MORE delights, in my post-metabolism life.
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So does it work the other way, too? Have there been short stories that you’d anticipated being novel-length and then….. they weren’t?
It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around Sunshine ever having been a short story. :)
Not yet.
It didn’t stay one long. :)
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Damn it, Robin! I have an enormous pile of books I am *supposed* to be reading (two bookclubs, loaners from friends, library books with due-by dates, etc), but all I want to do now is go and get “Dragonhaven” off the shelf, and read it again. I haven’t got time!
I’m glad that Australia resonated with you. When we go on holidays to pristine and staggeringly beautiful mountains, beaches, deserts or where-ever, I’m often overwhelmed with how lucky I am to be living here.
Well done with getting the proofreading finished. It’s just as well you didn’t follow the Naomi Novik model of avoiding the chore of proofs (re-reading her entire Georgette Heyer collection.) You can now bask in that wonderful sanctimonious feeling of mission accomplished. I am a world champion procrastinator when it comes to jobs I’d rather not do. Back in the dark ages when I was a high school teacher, there was many a Monday morning when the alarm went off at 5am so I could frantically do the correction I should have been doing at my leisure over the weekend. The best thing about leaving teaching was the weight of constant guilt that was lifted off my shoulders…..
I loved Oz. And to think I wasn’t going to get there in this life.
I’m NOT finished! I’ve just moved briskly on to SUNSHINE! They *reset* the —— for the reissue with the new cover illustration!!!
I’m one of the world’s worst procrastinators. I need a crane to get me out of bed some mornings, the guilt is so heavy. :)
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All those started as short stories?? Wow! Fascinating. (And I’m so glad they’re novels. If Sunshine was short…oh, I’d be sad.
SUNSHINE was a novel by the time I got to the end of where the short story was supposed to stop. Some of the other ones teased me more first. :)
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(And the inadvertent short story method…has become a source of marital tension …because I keep writing short stories that turn into novels.)
I’m sorry about the tension, but I’m so grateful for the novels. You’re one of the few writers whose books I actually buy. As opposed to getting them from the library, because I only need to read them once, right? I reread yours and reread them.
You do realize that this kind of thing is going to just drive us crazy with longing? Everyone I know knows that I am counting down the days (76) until *that* books comes out. They’re probably wishing it was sooner, so I’d stop reminding them.
What you’re telling me is that I can’t win, you know.
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I just have to keep remiding myself that anticipation is half the fun. (Which is a lie in this case, but it makes me feel better about the situation.) You don’t count driving us all mad as winning? This is the good kind of madness.
OK, I think I might actually post today. Which is to say I think I figured out why I couldn’t before. Yay!
I loved the details in Dragonhaven–especially the fact that the dragons were marsupials. (sp?) And Jake putting the dragonlet down his shirt–and the ensuing burns. I wondered where you had picked up the idea. Now I know and can sleep peacefully tonight.
Hello again, I’ve missed you all! (Especially you, Robin. And southdowner. And–I can’t thin of the other’s names right now…)
I can never remember people’s names. I do kinda miss the icons. But the message handling IS SOOOOO MUCH BETTER HERE.
Dragons are NOT marsupials. Marsupials are MAMMALS. I went through this in painful detail with various copyeditors. But whatever, I’m glad you liked it . . . :)
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Ah yes, the elusive typo… if it’s any comfort you aren’t the only person to suffer exactly that problem. It must be a special case of Sod’s Law: not only will there be at least one typo which has escaped every proofreader, but when you get the first copy of this nice new book it will fall open at that page and the typo will leap out and hit you in the face.
If it’s embarrassing in books, it can be even worse in contract documents for major projects, which have been examined in excruciating detail by at least four teams of high-powered lawyers. I can remember one where there was a typo in the contract price…
but when you get the first copy of this nice new book it will fall open at that page and the typo will leap out and hit you in the face.
********** Trust me this is a well known fact of publishing life. It never fails.
I can remember one where there was a typo in the contract price…
********* Now *that’s* one worth remembering.
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* The problem with lovely fresh salad with crisp springy leaves is the carom.
I myself am a victim of salad dressing shooting powers and the ability of crisp green leaves to convert dynamic into kinetic energy. I have a large variety of brooches to cover the resulting splatter patterns. One is a medium sized butterfly, in very fine gold which is light enough to alight on any fine material and for particularly bad splatters is accompanied by two miniature butterflies that can be artfully arranged around the main insect. I always hope oil stains will be centrally located, however, as decorating the area around my nipples with brooches looks weird and leaves me more than slightly uncomfortable.
By the way, Happy Fourth of July.
LOL! Yes, I tend to wear a *bib*. Tricky in public however. Well, I don’t eat salads in public much. I also have a fine assortment of spot removers. I have the brooches too but they’re a last resort.
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The reason some of my clothing has embroidery or applique is to cover spots the remover won’t remove. Failing that, they move to the “night clothes, painting clothes, and gardening clothes” categories. I have recently taken up fabric painting and know that the day will come when a disaster of a stain will become part of a painted embellishment.
I really felt at home with Sunshine’s wardrobe … and I love retirement for the fact that I can wear jeans day after day and may never have to stare pantyhose in the face again.
I like getting dressed up occasionally. Even panty hose and lady shoes. :)
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How about we ALL reread the books …… a giant team of proofreaders that you don’t have to pay and are eager to serve….. ;)
Oooh. I like *that* idea. :) I doubt my publisher would go for it however.
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Well we won’t tell them then. :p
Afterall if an author asks fans to read their books…. how *normal* is that? hehe
Dang, I may have to read Sunshine again. MWAHAHAHAHAHA (After I check the sheep of course!)
I have a massive collection of spot removers courtesy of my mother, who never saw one she didn’t want to try. It’s the fact that they are dried in by the time I get to the spot remover that causes the problem. Why even spot removing towelettes only work if you have them with you when the accident occurs! ;-)
Is this the time to tell you about a slight error I spotted in Dragonhaven? I just remembered because of the comment about marsupials being mammals. Quite early in the book, when Jake is talking about dragons not being mammals and he says something about “mammals can’t fly”. As later on you discuss bats and clearly know that bats are mammals, this is obviously one of those things that you scream what! about. I can’t tell you where exactly, as sister dearest has taken off with my copy, but it is early in the book. Probably you’ve already corrected it.
Sorry, I forgot that the Dragons had pouches but were not marsupials–but ya gotta admit it’s confusing. Or maybe I need to read Dragonhaven again… mea culpa.