The Evil Cow of R’lyeh Comes to Town, Laying Waste to All She Surveys
Sigh.
I knew there was a reason I would find keeping a blog difficult, and it’s got nothing to do with cranking out words every night.
And I knew there was a reason it was Days in the Life rather than Hours at My Desk. And that’s nothing to do with cranking out words either.
I have deleted the forum comments I am about to hold up here and stab repeatedly with a chopstick*; I have no desire to embarrass anyone personally, but if I’m going to go on talking about my work or posting bits of it here on the blog, you and I have to get a few things straight.
so unearth more and delight us some more-I am sure I am not the only McKinley fan waiting with bated breath.
and if you decide not to publish- I can live with that as long as you put it on the Blog!!
Please read what I wrote about this. It’s not a question of ‘deciding’. KIRITH was turned down because it wasn’t good enough. I don’t know if it’s worth saving or if I have the intestinal fortitude to try, or the sleight of hand/computer to succeed. If I rewrite it to publishable quality, Merrilee will sell it to a publisher. If I don’t rewrite it to publishable quality, or decide not to try, I will try to post the good bits on the blog.**
Aerin and Luth? ok robin, repeat after me..” happy ever after”-, the cardinal rule of fairy tales after all the travail to get there!
Rule One: Do Not Ever Tell Me How to Write My Stories. Even As A Joke. Subheading to rule one: Please read what I wrote about this (too). The story exists, even if I haven’t written most of it down yet. It is not cheerful. As I have said many times and (apparently) need to keep saying: stories have lives of their own. You-the-writer allow this. You are indeed extremely grateful for it: a live story is . . . a live story. And you mess with it at your peril: you try and make a story something it isn’t, and it dies on you, like a rhododendron planted in chalk.
Subsubheading to rule one: If you’re going to cite books and characters, it would be greatly appreciated by their author if you spell their names right. That’s Luthe.
You also clearly haven’t read a wide enough variety of fairy tales.
When I read the blue sword I was in my twenties
It was lovely then.
This is now.
If you see Damar through a different lens and a more mature experience, can you trust that we do too? For goodness sake dear we have all gotten older. The book you wrote in your maiden time will be different than the book you wrote in your mid years, and goodness, but the crone’s view is different still.
If Damar is darker from your view point, it will be richer for sure. Relax and write what is in you to write.
Rule Two: Do. Not. Ever. Patronise. Me. About. My. Writing. ‘For goodness sake dear we have all gotten older’? What the bleeding frell? I get mail every week from precocious 9 year olds who’ve just ripped through BEAUTY, SWORD, and HERO for the first time, and want the sequels. Precocious 9 year olds don’t read copyright dates–and a few of them do read this blog, because they email me about it.*** I would be up to my butt in financial alligators very quickly if the only people who read my books are the ones I picked up with the first editions of BEAUTY, SWORD, or HERO, and who have kept on reading what I’ve been writing since then. Furthermore my book mail tells me that most of the people who want sequels want more of the same. And if my book mail didn’t tell me that, Merrilee or any of my editors could. The best way to become a rich and famous writer† is to write a successful series.†† And the nearer the mixture as before, the better. Sure, there are series where the characters grow and change–these are known as ‘good’ series–but there are an awful lot where they don’t, and still sell like rosebushes to a certain mad party living in two (or three) tiny houses in Hampshire. I do actually get this: it’s books as chocolate. When I buy a bar of Green & Black’s I want to know what I’m getting, and it better be the same thing as the last time I bought a bar of Green & Black’s. I admit I find it a little disheartening that quite so much of the reading public seems to want mainly popcorn and comfort, but I can see how that comes from the world we live in too.
Sigh.
And of course there are best selling one-offs . . . and I guarantee you their authors’ lives are made a misery by people begging them to write sequels.††† And don’t bother killing off your main character: Conan Doyle tried it and it didn’t work.
And sure, the answer may be no. The answer is ‘no’ in my case: but there are reasons I keep repeating it. Probably three-quarters of my book mail includes requests for sequels: Damar and SUNSHINE chiefly, but all my books appear on the list some time or other. DRAGONHAVEN is quite popular lately. Remember also that any author feels a responsibility to her (or his) audience. In some cases this may be purely fiscal: you stop buying my books, the hellhounds and I stop eating. But any author who actually gives a flying fewmet about what she writes and the people who read it–and I would say conservatively that this is 99.999% of all writers–does want to make contact, to communicate, and to communicate what she was trying to communicate, rather than some slippage which has occurred by muzzy writing.‡ This means that she needs her readers to read what she wrote, instead of seeing it irritably through the vision of the sequel that they wanted her to have written. . . .
I could go on, but it’s late, and I need to play some Mozart. If I’d realised just how difficult this simple little duet was, I’d've stuffed my fabulous idea about duets back in its box and nailed it shut. But that’s an entry for another evening.
And, note to mods: any repetition of or variation on any theme of ‘relax and write what is in you to write’ is to be deleted on sight. Be kind to my blood pressure.
Jack Dedham!!!!!Yes, I’ve been smitten with him since I first spied him,I just found him so sexy so please tell his story!!
The Acceptable Squee Factor is probably an arbitrary line, and I therefore apologise for drawing it arbitrarily. But this is over it, whatever it is. Something about the number of exclamation points and the phrase ‘I just found him so sexy’. Remember the phrase I introduced a while back which went something like: Person I Would Not Say No To If They Invited Me Out for A Coffee (And I Probably Wouldn’t Even Tell Them I Don’t Drink Coffee).‡‡
And tomorrow I’ll post photos of snowdrops or something noncontroversial.
* * *
* I’m writing my entry over late post-bell-ringing supper, as so often
** I admit I see Problems Looming. Just the process of typing in those first 1000 words of KIRITH–since it’s hard copy, and I’m a fast enough typist I might as well, than wrestle with my scanner–my Inner Editor started trying to leap out and revise. This will get worse if/as I go on.
*** Also 10, 11 and 12 year olds. Which, as I also keep saying, is why I stick to frelling. I realise that kids these days have seen and heard it all by the time they start kindergarten, but I retain the romantic notion that kids should still be allowed to have some kind of childhood if it can be arranged. Frelling and its practical and philosophical environs is/are my drop in that bucket.
† The best way to become rich and famous includes, of course, not being a writer, but that’s a separate issue.
†† One of them even wrote me a wry, dry little summary of How to Become a Best Seller: Write a Series. Bless her, she was deliberately saying ‘don’t you even try’ but the point is she was telling the truth. And she’s been in the business at her end as long as I’ve been in the business at my end. She knows.
††† Actually, no. Best selling writers hire secretaries and the secretaries deal with it.
‡ Sigh.
‡‡ And with reference to a conversation on the forum about other people with crushes on Jack Dedham: what on earth does being married have to do with it? I’m married. And he’s a character in a book.
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