Sunshine (and Stedman)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91364064&sc=emaf : In which SUNSHINE is chosen on National Public Radio as a book that will keep you happy and distracted on a really gruesome long-haul flight. This is right up there in my definition of success, by the way, with flannel-nightie and dropping-in-the-bath reading. I aspire to these things. I want to produce the sort of book that people take to bed with them, read in the bath till the bubbles are all gone and the water’s cold. Or choose to go with them on long gruesome plane flights.
A lot of you have sent me this link, both here and by email, for which thanks. It’s actually a good thing to have several people tell you about something relating to one of your books, because it makes you hope that this means that the something is getting out there which is what you’re always always always hoping for, when you’re a writer, and you have hellhounds to feed and an attic floor to put in and so on. You want your stuff–and I think this applies to prints and paintings and etched glass and pottery and wrought iron plant stands and rhinestone dog collars as well as books, anything you’re making with a little piece of your self* and trying to sell on a more or less artistic basis**–to get out there because you’re sure that if it did get out there it would sell because it’s so excellent.*** At very least it can’t sell to anybody if anybody doesn’t know about it.
And SUNSHINE is the book I thought was going to put my kids through college.† It’s done perfectly respectably, but I didn’t want respectable, I wanted mad excess.†† And my agent and editor felt similarly enough††† that they’re putting out a new edition. So this is an extremely nice boost in the right direction.
My editor had told me that NPR was going to use it in a piece on summer reading, and that they’d asked her for an excerpt. So I knew this was coming. But I live in exile over here and I also tend to worry that only a few cranks like me listen to NPR–I was a faithful listener when I still lived on the other side of the pond–and that perhaps they mostly preach to the converted. Imagine my surprised delight then when I had an email from Merrilee this morning saying that as a result of the NPR piece, SUNSHINE spiked to 30-something on the Amazon best seller list. Yeeep. Okay, this is seriously good.
. . . And I rang a touch of Stedman tonight. You haven’t been hearing about ringing a lot lately partly because of the urgent press of other things, perhaps particularly large four-legged hay-eating things, but also partly because both my regular towers are going through kind of a boggy patch in terms of how many and what quality ringers turn up for practise as well as Sunday service. I haven’t been offered the chance to ring a touch of Stedman in a very long time;‡ I’ve been moaning to Peter that I’ll die of old age before I learn to ring a touch of Stedman. No! Wrong! I am going to learn! Even if there was a slightly backwards-through-the-hedgerow quality tonight, and lots of helpful nods, winks and shouts from the other ringers. We got through to the end. Yaay.
But just so you won’t think it’s all cakes and ale around here, when I got back to the cottage after ringing the hellhounds were so delighted to see me that I sat down on the kitchen floor with them so I didn’t have to keep bending over. Whereupon they both leaped enthusiastically on my chest and knocked me backwards into the spare chair and their water dish. Ow. Not only do I have to wash my hair, but I’m going to have an Interesting Bruise. Or perhaps Interesting Bruises. With luck my hair will cover the worst damage and no one will ask any penetrating questions about the gash on my arm. . . .
* * *
* Or possibly a big piece. There are definitely days when more of me is a storyteller than is, well, human, and I’ve known one or two artists who never had days when they were human.
* So, tell me rhinestone dog collars aren’t artistic. Go on. Tell me. And I will tell you you shop at the wrong pet haberdashery.
. . . Although it’s maybe an interesting point in another way. I’m not sure I wouldn’t define ‘artistic’ as ‘spun out of a little (or a big) piece of yourself’. Whether or not it’s good art depends on the quality of the piece and the quality of your spinning. And if you’re making rhinestone dog collars merely because the Furry Friend Emporium says they could sell them, then it’s not art. But if you’re connecting with those dog collars, then it is art. And I’d have to see your dog collars before I decreed whether they were good or bad art. Which has nothing to do with whether they sell. Which is sort of where we came in. Sigh.
*** This is another of those little conundrums about the spinning-your-living-out-of-your-gut system. There probably^ are authors and other artistic varieties who have a clear cool comprehension of their own work which is, furthermore, more or less correct. Most of the writers etc I know simultaneously hold the belief that they’re the best and that they’re . . . dreck. Mephitic, pullulating dreck. And I’m not talking about alternating moods. Making stuff up where there wasn’t any before, creating it out of you, you’re going to have good days and bad days that are, I think, a slightly different colour than the good days and bad days of someone who spends their time doing something sensible.^^ I don’t think there’s any way around this. Some of us do the empyrean/devil pit thing a bit more dramatically than others^^^, but I think we all do it; I think it’s just part of the chemical process of creating stuff from no-stuff plus you.
But it is perhaps a slightly more exotic gift to be able to know that nobody has ever done it better than you and that you should have been strangled at birth, before you learned to write/sculpt/glue rhinestones, and to know both these things at the same time. Note: it makes self-marketing somewhat challenging.
You still want your stuff out there. Because you hope it’s going to sell, either because it’s brilliant, or because the public are fools. You may not care which, depending on how far behind you are on your mortgage payments.
^ Well, maybe
^^ Good days and bad days, ha. Good minutes and bad minutes
^^^ I’m leaving it to your imagination where I fit in on this spectrum
† Oh. Right. I don’t have kids. Buy me my horse farm, then. The one with the castle. And the bell tower. And the hellhound proof fencing.
†† I wanted a horse farm.
††† Perhaps not about the horse farm. Well . . . hmm . . . I don’t know . . .
‡ Reminder: A plain course is what it sounds like. It’s ringing the basic pattern you’ve learnt out of a ringing diagrams book. A touch is when your beastly conductor makes calls that mix the bells up even further, so you have to hang on to your knowledge of the pattern as well as be mixed up. I can ring an ‘unaffected’ touch which is again what it sounds like: the bells get mixed up around you but your path through the pattern doesn’t change. But the calls in Stedman are . . . arcane. To give you, perhaps, a clue, there are two kinds of calls in Stedman doubles (six bells: five working and tenor behind), and their nicknames, which have to do with what the diagram looks like drawn on the page, are Cat’s Ears and Coathangers. Cat’s Ears are not too bad. Coathangers are . . . very bad indeed.
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When is the new Sunshine coming out? I keep buying your books and then giving them away to people who need them more than I do (ie, have memorized them less), and Sunshine is on semi-permanant loan to a friend. Depending on the cover art I’m considering giving her that one and buying myself a copy of the new one, but I don’t know how long I can wait.
I keep buying your books and then giving them away to people
********** You are a Wonderful Human Being. :)
The new one should be out in September.
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Hmm… maybe I should buy a new copy and give it away in September to some person who likes Twilight.
I’m not at all sure SUNSHINE and TWILIGHT aren’t mutually exclusive.
Well I WAS going to say yay, what a nice day, but… *passes the frozen peas* (Not that you would ever have frozen peas for any reason other than sticking them on your head, I know!)
Still, yay touch of Stedman! That’s great! *proud*
Well . . . I’ve been known to use frozen peas to STRETCH too-small heads of broccoli . . . :)
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******** So, tell me rhinestone dog collars aren’t artistic. Go on. Tell me.
http://www.myuptownpooch.com/designer_dog_clothes/home.php?cat=285 – for days when you want everything coordinated!
I’m not saying a thing, especially after I fell in love with a multicoloured Swarovski collar with 10 or 12 rows of crystals (spotlit) at Crufts, which would look lovely (for 5 minutes) on a fat white terrier neck that I know ;)
OH GODS. GO **AWAY.** :)
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******** And SUNSHINE is the book I thought was going to put my kids through college.
It IS that good – and better – I have great faith that your “kids”/horse palace is only a mqtter of time:)
Thank you! :)
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Oh, the story’s by Nancy Pearl, librarian idol! I have the deluxe action figure of her. :D
Congrats, and I bet it will at least hold steady on Amazon for a while, as that’s currently the #2 most-emailed story on npr.com.
deluxe action figure
********* Oooookay, I’m creeped out. :)
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If you think that’s creepy, how about the Marie Antoinette action figure with Ejector Head?
http://www.mcphee.com/items/11563.html
I heart Archie McPhee. If I ever get to Seattle, I’m going to the store, first thing.
EWWWWWWWWWW.
I’ve been to ARchie McPhee. It’s even weirder than you think. :)
Nancy Pearl wrote Book Lust a few years ago, essentially lists of recommended books in a huge range of categories, and it took off as a hit. So some company did make an action figure of a librarian. I think she lifts her finger and says SSSHH, but I may be wrong about that.
Oh, Book Lust! I think I even have it somewhere . . . [looks hunted . . . ]
It has dynamic shushing action (i.e. there’s a button on her back that makes her finger pop up to her mouth), but it does not actually emit sound. :) After I posted I realized I do in fact have both the original and the deluxe figures. The original is in the “display cabinet” in my entertainment center/bookcase/hutch, because I don’t really have anything else to display. The deluxe one comes with a backdrop and all kinds of accessories, and is therefore still in its box on the floor of my computer/dog room since I have no place to set it up permanently. I may be getting my own office at work soon (librarians are faculty, but not faculty enough for private offices apparently), in which case it will certainly go there.
It has dynamic shushing action
******** LOL!!!
*Both*–? I’m thinking maybe you need to get out more–? :)
:P People keep giving them to me.
Yeah, sure, uh-huh. :)
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! I’ve always been so impressed with the non-performing arts (visual, language). These artists are separated from their audience both spatially and temporally. To create a great piece of art that connects across such a distance must require SO MUCH energy. As a dancer I know immediately if I’ve connected with my audience. I can feed off of their energy too. But to write something, I can’t imagine the amount of work. Congrats again.
Thank you! –It’s a very, very different space. I’ve never performed as *art* but I know from seminars and public speaking and things what you mean about connecting with an audience and using their energy to keep going yourself. You connect with the THING in a, uh, purer or simpler form, doing something like writing, off in your own hermetically sealed little solitary space. It does mean worrying about what kind of an audience you may have, or how it will react, pretty harrowing, but then you must get that in rehearsal.
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A coathanger sounds more like a murder weapon than a ringing pattern…
Then again, to hear you talk it is probably BOTH.
LOL! Yes!
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How’d I miss the NPR story? I listen to KPCC all day. Must’ve been while I was away from the radio. I see that An Infamous Army also made the list. Two of my favorite authors, two of my favorite books. Cool, and, I hope, productive of more sales.
I keep flogging Sunshine to everyone who even vaguely likes vampires or just likes a good read, to the point of buying an extra copy to give to my best friend. Then I bought it in hardcover so I can lend out my paperback. I’ll keep pushing it, because it deserves to be wildly successful. Mad excess, yes indeedy.
It’s a comfort book, and if I had to go to the hospital, or go spend a week with my Aged Parents, I’d pack Sunshine first.
Congratulations and virtual champagne on conquering that bit of Stedman’s!
I’m sorry the hellhounds went Tigger (the one and only Milne Tigger, not the Disney travesty) all over you, but it does sound like they’re feeling more frisky. I guess that’s some small consolation for the nasty bruises.
In re rhinestone dog collars and other forms of creativity, this is one of my pet quotes:
“The creative urge can come out in any form: in embroidery, in the cooking of interesting dishes, in painting, drawing and sculpture, in composing music, as well as in writing books and stories… the artist’s inner satisfaction was probably much the same.” ~ Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
I think she’s got a good point there, or so I keep telling myself when I look at my little endeavors and whimper… The mermaid is proving recalcitrant again. Oh well, there’s no deadline, seeing as the class was over back in December. I am becoming quite fond of online classes; no travelling, no dealing with other people (except online), no worrying about forgetting some critical component, and best of all, no time limits.
Oops, time to go put food on the family. Feel better soon, Robin.
OH, yes, please, flog away! Thank you!
I’m surprisingly unlastingly damaged from yesterday’s little contretemps, can’t imagine how THAT happened. Or, anyway, I can’t seem to tell which bruises are which . . . :)
I LOVE crafty things and wish I had time to grapple with more of them. Yaay to more crafty things. What mermaid?
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Mermaid is for my second mini vision quilt, from an online class taught by Mai-Liis Peacock.
Here’s the first one, a folk doll mini vision quilt, on my livejournal (kindly disregard the adult-content warning, it’s just so I can rant in peace):
http://anne-d.livejournal.com/31541.html#cutid1
Oh, and she has a name, finally, “Serenity”.
Well, I hope that link works.
Oh, well done! Yes, the link works a treat! :)
Cleverly hit the send button before I meant to – I’ve got one of my S’cubie (Jossverse fan online group) friends to read Sunshine (she loved it, of course) and at least one more who’s going to. Heh heh heh.
I hope the bruises are healing, and that Chaos and Darkness are properly attentive and penitent.
ATTENTIVE? PENITENT? These are HELLHOUNDS! :)
**ATTENTIVE? PENITENT? These are HELLHOUNDS! :)**
Yes, and you are the HellGoddess, which makes them your minions. Attentive and penitent, I say! Also worshipful, but that’s probably too much to ask; it certainly is for the cats [glares at resident felines].
And since there’s no “reply here” on the post with the link to my vision quilt, thank you most kindly!
No, actually they do worshipful very well! It’s the attentive and penitent they have trouble with! :)
I’ve been silently lurking on this blog for a couple of months now and since I feel equally passionate about both NPR and Sunshine…. I will finally chime in and say that it’s is VERY NICE when two of your favorite things collide in a positive manner. Sunshine is DEFINTELY worthy of excessive success : )
Since this is my first post… and I’m on the subject of excess… Robin, it’s entirely your fault that I got taken to task in college for abuse of semi-colons. They don’t teach semi-colons very well in school; on the other hand, you use them so beautifully that I got semi-colon crazy. (Four in one paragraph is probably too much, I admit. I limit myself to one per paragraph, MAX, now.) But in any case… thank you, among many other things, for making me love semi-colons. (How does this rank among odd, but heartfelt, compliments from fans?)
LOL! I love it a lot! I’ve been driving whole GENERATIONS of copyeditors round the twist with my, ahem, INDIVIDUAL approach to punctuation! I ADORE semi colons (as you’ve noticed)!
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Oh!
Off -topic p.s.
Roses…………….. Any thoughts on Celsiana roses?
Just wondering.
Because I read an article about them and my Grandmother [she read the article first] wants me to find some for her– I sent an inquiring email to the person whose email is listed in the paper as the one to contact about procuring the roses, but I also thought that you might know something about them/have an opinion.
Plus now this means that I can contribute something to the rose discussions- something other than ” OH! So beautiful!” etc etc, that is!!!
:)
–Julia
There is *a* Celsiana, it’s a summer-flowering (once only) Damask, an old rose. I don’t know what Celsiana roses are. Sounds like an advertising gimmick. Nothing to say it can’t be a good ad gimmick for nice roses however. But there’s a deep divide between American and English roses: both the names and the classifications are often different.
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The motto on top says “Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” It could have been written with me in mind! (Although I’ve just managed to tear my yellow summer coat, and am hearbroken! It was old – Mamma had bought it for me, “You must have had it for at least seventeen years” she said when I told her – my husband always kept asking me if I wasn’t going to buy a new one so of course when the evil incident happened I said “I suppose this will please YOU!” Unfortunately I’m terribly choosy about coats so I don’t know if there are actually any coats I like to be bought – it should be long and wide in the skirt – I hate coats that bunch up one’s skirts between the knees, which is improper, inelegant and thoroughly uncomfortable! Sorry about that…)
Anyway: HURRAH FOR THE GOOD NEW! HURRAH! HURRAH! HURRAH!
(Also about the handsome Constantine – perhaps he struck the radio lady as so attractive that she thought of him as handsome? Like Mr Rochester, you know. One somehow _feels_ that he is handsome, although one rationally knows that he is not.)
I live in rural coastal Virginia and in September 2003 a hurricane came through and made a mess of this area. Sunshine had arrived just before the storm hit. Sunshine was the balm that got me through 13 days without electricity, trees down blocking the roads, and running a generator to draw water from the well to get enough for basic needs. This was two weeks of semi-primitive camping without any of the fun. Talk about the ultimate comfort book, while all this was going on I would sit on the porch and escape into Sunshine’s world. Just wanted to let you know that I bought Sunshine and gave it to each of my friends for Christmas that year I loved it so much. I’m glad that you aspire to write books that are comforts to help your readers escape to a better place. I finally get a chance to say thank you.
Thank you VERY much (my imaginary gallery of praise is filling up VERY well :)). Oh, I so know what you mean about just *needing* a book to escape into when the real situation is bad. This is another of those ‘this is what I aspire to’ things, like flannel-nightie and cold-bath reading: a book that will genuinely take you AWAY and put you somewhere ELSE for a while, even when it’s REALLY bad out there.
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I’m off to a horse event for the weekend. Sunshine is being packed in readiness for a long cold night in the motel. (Better than the long cold night at the camp ground – I do not need to sleep in a tent when it will get to -4 !!)
And well done! with the Stedman :)
Well, hell yeah Robin! Congratulations, that’s just about awesome!
Oh, Yay! Go you!
“Sunshine” was one of very few books that kept me going when we were doing a huuuge remodeling on our house and I was Forbidden to Buy New Books*, and most of my old books were packed away in storage. So I had already bought “Sunshine”, or perhaps I was allowed because we were taking a long gruesome plane flight (San Francisco to Minneapolis via Chicago, probably), so whenever I needed to unwind with, you know, /words in a row/, there it was! Just as good on the nth reading as the first.
So it deserves the attention. Congratulations!
*brutal. just … brutal.
Thank you very much!
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Congratulations about being featured on NPR! Sunshine deserves much more publicity than it got…and a new edition means I will have an opportunity to go out an buy a new copy. My first one is on its last legs, due to the fact it has been dragged (almost) everywhere with me. It is, without a doubt, my Comfort Book.
Sunshine deserves much more publicity than it got…
******* Thank you! Well let’s hope this is the beginning of a New Era.
and a new edition means I will have an opportunity to go out an buy a new copy
******** Yaaay! Another three nails for the attic floor! :)
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I simply have to say – well first off, I’m a long time lurker on your blog; I read it, but comment not very often, or not at all really, which is more truthful – I have read Sunshine on the long-haul flights. I pull it out on long nights as comfort reading. I absolutely love Rae. And I have certainly read Sunshine in the bath so long that the water has gotten much too cold to bear. I even bought two copies- the original hardcover, and the easier-to-handle mass market paperback.
And just so you know, purchasing TWO separate copies of a book is nigh unheard of for me. It trumped my last favorite novel (oddly enough, the Blue Sword) and I recommend it whenever given the chance to breath. Go Sunshine!
Thank you very much! You wouldn’t like to provide a user name–?
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Many congrats on ringing Stedman, and *many more* on Sunshine’s performance. NPR has quite a large market share these days, and the morning program gets one of its biggest audiences, so the word well and truly did get out there.
Lordy be, you are a brave woman to get down on the floor with excited hellhounds. This is asking for death at my house–way too easy to get overwhelmed and trampled, and I have just one set of big feet to worry about. I’m sure your boys were greatly amused by the sight of you with your head in the water dish–I’m thinking of a Far Side cartoon where the human slips and hits the floor while carrying a plate of spaghetti, and the dog looks at this with a happily thumping tail. (Although mine would have been wagging while scarfing the spaghetti, so she would have enjoyed the situation on multiple levels.) I hope the interesting bruises respond to arnica and don’t make you look like you’ve been mugged.
LOL! But your single girl weighs more than twice what my two hellhounds weigh, I think! Together they’re still only about 100 pounds (haven’t weighed them recently). How is your little boy doing? Any plan/date for him coming home to you?
And I’m *delighted* that NPR is that well listened to–and that the plug got on the right programme.
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The little boy is three weeks old today. He and his sisters had their first meal-in-a-pan and apparently they went at it like sharks. This is good; we keep our fingers crossed that they all stay healthy. The breeder isn’t sure right now how he’ll come out as a show prospect, so we’ll have to wait and see on that; he’s from an outcross and he’s a small puppy, so it’s still too early to tell. Anyway, I will see him next week–I am going east for my aunt’s 98th birthday party and am giving myself a day to go see the babies. There *will* be pictures!
If we end up taking him, he’d be coming home in early September.
Well I hope it’s a good party but YAAAAY PUPPY PICTURES. :)
Send many good thoughts that he turns out healthy and sweet and PRETTY. I am getting the depressing feeling that if this doesn’t work I may need to breed the Alpha Bitch, and I don’t want to . . .
Healthy and sweet and pretty . . . and DO breed Alpha anyway!!!!! :)
I have bred twice, and the results were not exclusively joyous. I do rescue, and shudder at the thought of having to find possibly 10 GOOD and PERMANENT homes for puppies. We got the Tripod back at age 2, which was a blessing, but then got his brother back at age 4 1/2 and I had to place him. People drive you nuts. So breeding is not really high on my list of things to do.
Congratulations on the Sunshine news! Sunshine has always been one of my favorite books of yours. Some time ago I wrote to the National Library Service for the Blind and Visually Handicapped and requested that Sunshine be added to their library. I got a nice note back saying they had it scheduled to be recorded. (I like to think it was my request, but they probably had it scheduled already.) Just this month I found it was available, so now my mother can read it, too.
I’m glad they are coming out with a trade edition. My MM copy is just about worn out. It flops open to my favorite parts quite naturally.
*I* didn’t know there was a blind version. I’m delighted! Thank you! :)
The flopping open part is fine, except it tends to be followed by the pages-falling-out part.
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From your title it almost appeared as if Sunshine was mentioned on Oprah, which would have been even better than NPR in commercial terms. But well done on the plug and the sales spike. Sorry to hear about the bruise and I do hope it doesn’t aggravate the ME.
Washing your hair: well I recently got hit by my midsummer brainstorm, where I couldn’t stand the heat on my head any longer (this has defeated efforts to grow my hair long for the last decade) and now sport hair shorter than my visiting ten-year-old nephew. Who reminds me of you, because he does GO ON about his passions. And if, on occasion I get a bit glassy eyed (more skate boarding – the current immersion) I am still engaged by his voice, his expression and his passion – just as I am yours. So thank you for sharing.
Does it make you feel good that I have Sunshine practically memorised? I hope it does. And also at work we’ve got all your books, and Sunshine and Deerskin have annoylingly enthusiastic recommendation slips stuck in them.
There. I hope you feel better.
Writing book recommendations and steering people away from terrible books is one of the joys of bookstorism. Erm, is it okay if we order a whole lot of the old cover copies of Sunshine before the new one comes out? I really like the old cover, and I promise to keep making it sell. :)
And yes, I don’t write, but I do all sorts of crafty things, and I do simulataneously feel that whatever I’ve made is stunning and terrible, horrible, and full of flaws. And I neurotically want all sorts of praise and reassurance to balance out the horrible.
I also dropped Hero and the Crown in the bath when I was twelve, and just replaced my copy. So there.
And this is disjointed, but it’s EARLY on a Saturday morning, and I haven’t had tea yet.
LOL! When you’re saying things this nice disjointed is just fine! :) I like ‘bookstorism’. It’s the sort of thing *I* say. :) I also like ‘annoyingly enthusiastic’.
ABSOLUTELY order a lot of the old cover copies. I really like that cover too. Have you seen a picture of the new one? Dare I ask what you think? Is it, you know, COMMERCIAL, like they keep telling me?
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Yay for Sunshine! My family has a bit of a history with it–our first copy has been on three continents on various holidays (three sisters and a mother who takes recommendations). Being shut up at Christmas in a tiny hostel on the coast of Scotland, we were all at each other’s necks until we found a Waterstone’s and then silence reigned while one by one we finished reading.
Then in grad school I found I had left my copy back home in a box and had to order another from a local bookstore so I could get through my thesis (on Lyonet from Malory, who reminds me of Beauty and Rosie)–it was one of those books I read whilst jostling tourists, jaywalking back and forth from cafe’ to library. Much as I love Sunshine (and am still trying to perfect the recipe for Cinnamon Rolls As Big As Your Head), though, Beauty is my favourite of all time . . . in an English-books-impoverished community, it is one of the most lent-out books from our home.
When I get rich I’ll buy more copies . . . :D
Oh, and you might also be interested in the fact that your books are bought by military libraries and put in the “give one take one” piles of books that are popular locally. As a military brat, I thought you’d appreciate that.
Thank you! –I wish we’d had those piles when I *was* a military brat. But certainly books enabled me to survive military brathood; books were reliable when people and geography were not.
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” I want to produce the sort of book that people take to bed with them, read in the bath till the bubbles are all gone and the water’s cold. Or choose to go with them on long gruesome plane flights.”
I admit to having done all three with your books. And here’s how ‘the Rose Daughter’ and ‘Beauty’ helped me stay sane.
When I remember the good things about the summer of ’99, I remember the never setting sun shining on mountains and glaciers, the sounds of raindrops on canvas, the snores and warmth of Bridger and Teva, and reading ‘Rose Daughter’ and ‘Beauty’.
The Juneau ice field is one of the largest in the world and on its glaciers there are several helicopter/sled dog tour organizations. Everything – dogs, staff, food, tourists, dixi toilets – arrives and departs via helicopter.
The weather in Juneau could make England look like the sunniest place on earth. When the clouds come in low, the helicopters can’t fly. Once, before I flew up, I knew the weather would be bad and it might be more than a week before I got down again. So I went to the Juneau public library and checked out three books: ‘Rose Daughter’, ‘Beauty’, and something else which will remain unnamed.
After saying goodbye to the staff rotating off and settling into our canvas tents we had a half a day of sun before the fog rolled in. For 21 days it snowed, rained and fogged. We snow shoed, exercised the dogs, talked and played games. After 5 days we knew far too much about each other and I turned to books. At day 15 one helicopter made it up, took off all but 3 staff and brought food.
Each of us dealt with the confinement in our white prison differently. I spent four hours doing dog related work. Then I allowed myself to curl up on my cot with two dogs draped over for warmth and enjoy my holy hours of reading. Instead of gobbling up the words at my normal pace, I read slowly, enjoying each word and the rhythm of the sentences. When I finished one book, I picked up the other. I have no idea how many times I read them but those holy hours kept me sane.
The third, unnamed book I will never, ever read again. I tried once and it brought back the bad hellish memories. It’s a testament to your wonderful writing that I can still read the ‘rose’ books at all. Not only can I still read them, they bring back good memories. Sometimes when I’m lost in the words I can almost hear the sound of rain and feel Teva’s weight on my chest and Bridger pressed against my back.
Your books are the books I choose to fight cabin fever.
Wow. Thank you. Except it looks so self-regarding I’m tempted to start a gallery of Praise I Really Want to Remember. Yours would go in it immediately.
And I’m told Sitka is even worse. I’ve been to both, but the weather was kind to me in Juneau.
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“Most of the writers etc I know simultaneously hold the belief that they’re the best and that they’re . . . dreck. Mephitic, pullulating dreck. And I’m not talking about alternating moods.”
Oh, thank heavens! I hate that feeling, and I suspected I wasn’t the only writer to have it, but one never really KNOWS because you don’t want to go around telling people that. It sounds all braggy, that first part, and then the second part automatically comes with the obligatory, “No, you’re good, really, you’re great!” which is nice, but feels forced and you want that to come spontaneously, not for the asking.
Then part of you thinks, “I KNOW!! I’m good and sometimes it’s frightening because it feels like the muse isn’t just inspiring, it’s taking over my fingers and I have to retreat to the back of my brain and just watch it happen,” and the other part wails, “It’s hopeless!!! Why do you even bother putting pen to paper, you worthless pathetic creature? Look at this person and that person and the other one over there, and then tell me you have ANYTHING worthwhile to say or ways in which to say it. You’re laughable, that’s what you are.”
Honestly, I want to smack both bits.
Honestly, I want to smack both bits.
******* Good. A sign of a *sane, well-adjusted* writer. :) It’s true, you do have to be careful about how and to whom you whine, because you do kind of sound ego-bratty and like you’re hoping for reassurance. Unless it’s another writer you’re talking to in which case they know you’re just telling the TRUTH.
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Who would you choose to play Constantine in a movie version of Sunshine?
I Know that it will never be made into a movie but am still curious to see who you would pick .
I wouldn’t.
Who are you?
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Yay Sunshine! Yay Robin! The main radio station in our family is NPR, and I wish I’d caught this piece. I can just hear the book guy’s voice behind the words in the article thingy….. :D
And if I have the money when the new edition comes out, I intend to buy it. Which I probably wouldn’t if it weren’t for this blog, except that I worry about my copy wearing out anyway…..Never mind.
Well, the text link is still pretty good! And also, while this is perhaps halfway to heresy, several of the other books look pretty good too . . .
Which I probably wouldn’t if it weren’t for this blog
********* Oh good. I’m NOT wasting my time . . .
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I’m ashamed to say I had to look up both “mephitic” and “pullulating” – a highly unusual occurrence for me, since I thought I’d memorized most of the dictionary. Once I did…well…let’s just say that I am gonna be haunted by THAT imagery for the next week. “Mephitic, pullulating dreck” – oh boy, my diet’s off to a great start; I don’t wanna even think about food! Brilliant – I hereby assign you to turn a new, freshly revolting phrase every time my willpower falters!
LOL! I’ll try my best!
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Well, Sunshine deserves all the accolades it gets. Congratulations!
I have Interesting Bruises because I keep running into things at work. Sigh.
Does this mean you do Interesting Work? :)
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I clean dorm rooms for the local university. At the moment. During the school year I work at my university’s library (different university). Not as many Interesting Bruises, but a few funny stories.
Oh, I forgot! Did the second link to the bell video work?
Good. YOu haven’t pulled any shelves over on yourself, then. :)
Yes . . . but that was a while ago now.
All of my very favorite books in life look rather worse for wear, in a much-loved and bedraggled type of way. I guess love is rough on books; especially when that means dragging them along on camping trips, band trips, to the pool, in the kitchen, and braving the occasional burst of sprinklers that happen to come on when I’m sitting on the grass under a tree (more than a few have pitch from the tree, as well). *shrug* I like to think that my books are as busy as I am. :)
I got Sunshine just before a hurricane came through and made a mess of things. I was without power for 13 days. We live in a rural area so we were way down the list of places that got help. It was miserable. Sunshine was my escape to a better place. I loved the book so much that I gave it to all of my friends that year for Christmas. It is still on my comfort book list and has been re-read often. Thank you for writing books that allow me to escape to a better place for at least a little while.
OH dear–did I fail to unscreen this yesterday? I’m very sorry! THANK YOU! I love stories like this–well I would, wouldn’t I? But I do understand about books that can really TAKE YOU AWAY, so I know what a compliment this is.
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Robin, you are bad for my book buying budget! I keep wanting to reread your books, but they’re all packed away in boxes! And the local libraries, bless the librarians’ budget-starved souls, don’t have them (other than Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown). So, I buy them all over again! All this talk of Sunshine makes me want so badly to reread it that I will break down and buy another copy. Sigh. The one good thing is that I’m introducing my older son’s fiancee to more of your books. I gave her Spindle’s End after I bought that for my last long plane trip earlier this year (from Florida to Massachusetts); my problem is I read so fast, it only lasted for 3/4 of the way up to Boston. When I fly, I have to pack at least 3 big, thick books to keep me going.
I did buy Beauty for my son’s school library. But now I’m also craving Rose Daughter …
I usually listen to NPR, but because it’s summer, I get up later in the morning (my younger son feeds the cats) – he’s on summer vacation, so my husband doesn’t feel pressured to get up early in the morning to get to work. Messes up MY work schedule, I lose at least 2 hours every day (it’s difficult for me to start working while my husband is home). So now I miss most of the morning programs, so I missed Nancy Pearl this week. Since I also love An Infamous Army, I’m not happy with myself …
But be happy that we now have the web, and at least you can look it up there. When I was still listening to NPR, you either caught the programme, or you didn’t.
(Repeat book buyers are my favourite people on the planet. Just so you’ll know. :))
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*I’m ashamed to say I had to look up both “mephitic” and “pullulating” *
Oh my, those are /real/ words? That phrase is even better than I thought when I first read it! This is one of the reasons I love your writing – each new book I learn new words. And I read a LOT (less than when in high school when the average was 1/day. Homework? What homework? I paid attention in class, didn’t I?). And, um, quickly.
I am among the ranks of fans who recommend you, and Sunshine, to all and sundry whenever a semi-opportunity arises. Although I will admit that on occasion I’ve slipped and enthusiastically mentioned my need for a dictionary as one of the wow-factors. And received …. odd… looks.
Completely with you on the simultaneous-conflicting feelings. It goes with my music, my writing and my work – counselling, training & Shiatsu, which most people including me assume that when you’ve studied you know what you need to do, despite the fact that no person is EVER going to be a text book case. Until and unless you write the text book. And then you’ll never see another like that again! :-)
YAY and dancing rodents on the coverage. May it long continue (with accompanying sales, of course. If anyone deserves a horse farm on the proceeds of their grinding mental labour…)
LOL! Thank you! –Shiatsu, yes, very much like homeopathy that way I imagine.
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I don’t know much about homeopathy, but I think they are even though the Eastern and Western medical models are completely different. AIUI both homeopathy and shiatsu look at the patterns and adjust treatment accordingly – the combinations of patterns and character being what makes each client different, and explaining why some treatments/remedies work on one but not another.
It’s never boring and 80% of the time utterly awesome how we humans work.
Yes . . . exactly. :) And I know precious little about shiatsu. I just know it’s another of these adjust-to-the-INDIVIDUAL therapies.
I was in the bookstore yesterday and a woman I had accidentally collided with (we were both looking at shelves and not at the aisle), said she was looking for a book about vampires by a young adult author but it was an adult book and she couldn’t remember the title or author other than she thought the author’s name started with Mc. I promptly told her it was Sunshine by one of my favorite authors and grabbed a copy off the shelf for her. She said she couldn’t remember if that was the title she was looking for or not and I said it didn’t really matter as it was a terrific book and she should read it anyway. We both laughed and she walked out with it.
Sorry I’ve been absent so long. I had my baby (a boy!) the beginning of May and I’ve only just started getting myself together again enough to spend time on the web.
EJ
Good heavens, you’re forgiven! :) Congratulations! Do you want to mention his name?
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His name is Theodore George, although we promptly nicknamed him Teddy. He was 8 lbs 9 oz and 21″ at birth. Thanks for asking! :-)
Yea Teddy! :) Are you posting photos anywhere?
Yay, Sunshine!
It’s one of the books I love to reread once or twice a year. Last year, while going through a really bad patch with work, I think I reread it nonstop for about four months. I kept gearing up to deal with another horrid meeting by thinking “Sunshine would make hash of this bastard, I can sit in a room with him for 45 minutes and not let it get me down.” And many of the vampires at the end were stand ins for stupid things coming down the pipe from new management. All of them nicely finished off by the end of the book. It was very therapeutic. And how refreshing to have a cranky, likeable heroine.
I too gave a copy to my best friend (we’ve been book buddies since we were in Jr High) and I enjoy letting people know about it. I am bummed I missed out on the NPR show.
Thank you! Sunshine would be pleased too! :) (I also hope you found another JOB!)
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I’m another reader who (compulsively) buys your books in order to give them to others. Also, I find I get twitchy is someone has *my* copy and is thus preventing me from reading it whenever I want, which necessitates another copy purchased.
This also occurs when one gets too tattered and is thus unsafe to loan out (two copies of Blue Sword have reached that level).
It helps that I’m a middle-school teacher and can rationalize that I am actually buying them for my classroom library (where your books are pretty much on permanent-checked-out status and have become a standard (i.e. well, it’s okay, but I like it less than Beauty, or it’s not as exciting as The Blue Sword or…))
I also use the first paragraph of The Blue Sword as a memory demonstration in class (you too can memorize more than a sentence! watch your teacher!) and I tell them I know it because I’ve read it so often that I didn’t actually have to work to memorize it.
Of course, I’m also a horseback rider, so I love the bits of your blog about the horses and hellhounds (how did you find such a lovely place to ride? I’m moving to Manchester soon and am quite nervous about locating somewhere to ride…)
I didn’t find it! This is where Peter lived and when I married him I started living here too!
Good luck and THANK YOU! And I hope moving to Manchester won’t change your adorable book buying habits! :)
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Yes! I am no longer at that job. It helped my pride that they seemed to be going for a “voluntary” shut-down of my old department. It was kind of like being caught in a trash compactor. Nope, don’t miss that at all!
I know I do darned good work. I also know I am human and have my lame spots too. I *hate* corporate games and I stink at playing them long-term. The worse the head games get, the stronger the temptation for me to do something truly naughty, just to bug them. But what a waste of life that would be, so on I move.