Of Blog Fiction
Mockorange
I feel that A dog is guaranteed at some point.
Well . . . yes. Kes is, after all, a parody of me—Kestrel MacFarquhar? Please. At the same time she’s had a life of her own since the idea of writing about her first occurred to me—since the idea of writing about her revealed itself as possible. And she wouldn’t be possible if she didn’t, if you follow me. But I’ve told you that one of the ways I know a story is ready to stop slamming around the inside of my skull and start going down (more or less politely) on paper/screen is that I can read the first sentence in my mind’s eye. That was true for KES too—and I have never been married to a Greek geek. And, um, no, ‘Greek geek’ only occurred to me as I was settling down to write this blog. But one of the things that makes her possible, makes writing fiction for the blog possible, is that every time I have to make a decision—every time I’m not sure what comes next—every time the story wants a little help from me, I think, okay, what would I do? What would I want? Very often the response from the story is NO WAY JOSE but it gives us somewhere to start negotiations. I’m a kind of tent-peg to pin the flapping thing down in this frelling wind. I don’t myself feel you get to rip yourself off quite this blatantly in, you know, real fiction.
But when you’re guessing about what’s going to happen, well, keep me in mind, as it were. Although I am not going to give her ME.
b_twin
Or, to really make life trickier, she could find a stray alpaca. Good thing she has a van.
Unfortunately the van is going home tomorrow*, although she’s going to end up with a somewhat unconventional (and possibly alpaca-friendly) vehicle. Or anyway not the vehicle she had in mind. The problem with alpacas is that I don’t know any. I keep wondering what would happen if I tried to shine up to one of the local alpaca keepers. ‘Hi, I write novels for a living, and I want to put an alpaca in one’. I’m afraid they might back away from me slowly. Or not so slowly. I know lots of critters, so I’m happy to make one up till it comes alive and takes over—the dragons in DRAGONHAVEN are like that: I knew that Jake was going to raise one, and I knew how that relationship began, and I could guess it would have a strong personality, but that’s about all I knew—but while your story is its own thing if it’s going to be worth reading by strangers, it can still only eat you. If you haven’t got the vitamins and minerals it needs, it can’t grow that way. I can’t grow an alpaca. Maybe some day. I love the whole guard-alpaca/llama thing.
There are a few alpacas at the critter shelter where Maggie works in SHADOWS. But they barely have a (ahem) walk-on part. Sigh.
KathyS
Still imagining Wonderdog versus the Crickets of Doom.
With the cricket chorus breathing like Darth Vader.
City Girl moves to the country for the first time at the age of (almost) forty? And plans to live alone? She so needs a dog. I’d spent a fair amount of my childhood in the country, and then boomeranged back and forth between city and country for a while as a grown-up. When I first left Manhattan and went back to Maine (this hadn’t been the plan, but that’s another story), I had housemates, and I still remember the way the nights sounded out in the sticks again.** Then when I moved alone into my little house in Blue Hill—and that was even in a village, although it was (then) a small village and I was kind of tucked away in a corner of it—THE NOISES GOT LOUDER.***
KatydidNL
Am I the only one who really wishes she had a copy of these Flowerhair books?
I answered this already, didn’t I? But since then . . . I’m trying to stay some eps ahead of what I’m posting, so I have some idea where I’m going†, and have recently written Kes remembering her first meeting with Flowerhair. She’s like, what? What’s happening? —which is a fairly common author reaction, or at least this author reaction. And I realised that I’m going to write that scene at least: the what is happening scene. At this point I have no idea if there will be more interpolations or not.
b_twin
Roses. Methinks our heroine may in trouble… After all, you generally just start with one
Kes is already in more rose trouble than she realises. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.
abigailmm
Don’t stop there! What DOES K stand for? Kareen? Kiss? Koala? Kaiulani?
Snork. I would have been devastated if one of you had guessed (and posted it) correctly, so I’m glad you didn’t. At the same time . . . how many birds begin with ‘K’? If you’d twigged that the parody was deliberate and, um, not very subtle. I had various friends trying to suggest more mild mannered birds and I was all, No! She is a RAPTOR! Kestrel occurred to me very early on but I spent some time dithering (and reading up on raptors) in one of my fits of oh-gods-maybe-I’ve-only-got-it-half-right. But she is Kes. She just is.
katinseattle
|
What does the ‘K’ stand for?” I hesitated. |
This is the woman who said she doesn’t like cliffhangers?
The blog has ruined me in a number of ways. I didn’t use to like puns either. But I can’t imagine cranking out a blog without getting to play with the language punnily. And cliffhangers . . . remember that torturing my readers is one of my pleasures. The blog is a lot of work, and I couldn’t do it if it weren’t also fun. And it’s not like I ever torture you extensively, or for long.†
Mirkat
Oh small towns. How I love and loathe thee. No one ever used house numbers – we lived in the “Johnson” house for a decade. My husband’s family has now lived in the same small town for OVER TWENTY YEARS and had 7 kids go through the k-12 school and they still aren’t considered “local.”
Sure. But your nosy neighbour will also bring your washing in when it rains and you’re loading up at Godzilla Foods three towns away—possibly including picking up that package of frozen raspberry and onion lo-gluten bagels she asked for. You can buy fresh lobster from the fisherman who’s a friend of yours at the end of the dock, and he’ll slip you a moose steak when he goes hunting that winter, even if he likes to pretend you’re too urban to deal with either one. Myself, I’ll take my neighbours knowing who stays overnight at my house (ahem) in exchange for my knowing that if I’m ever snowed in, somebody will get me out. And twenty years, eh. Twenty years isn’t so long. I’ve been twenty years in this particular five-mile stretch of Hampshire and I am certainly not a local.
rainycity1
|
Kestrel eh? Pretty odd name, but could have been a lot worse (eg something along the lines of Bliss or Desire (but beginning with K obviously)). |
You mean like, ‘Kissy’? ‘Kasandra’? I wonder what other ‘K’ names we could come up with? An opportunity has been missed.
Kalinda. Kacey. Kelly. Katisha. Remember I like Kes.
rainycity1
| Ithilien wrote on Sat, 19 May 2012 21:48 |
| But is it a friendly or unfriendly shadow???? ::dangles on tenterhooks:: |
I know where I’m placing my bets but I don’t want to share my guess in case I’m right.
Hold that thought. I don’t write mysteries—although I think Cathy may have some evil plans, they may just be that it amuses her to see me jump and scream—but I’d be grateful not to have things given away. But it’s probably only honourable to warn you that it’s a fair time before you see the shadow close enough to identify. I’m not sure when myself. It’s just that even tomorrow is still kind of a ways off and I don’t think it’s tomorrow.
shalea
Would you have a problem with one downloading the episodes of the New Thing into one’s Nook? I’d hate to impinge on any sort of copyright whether it’s imposed by law or by the wishes of the author.
How very nice of you to ask. Thank you. Extra points, a gold star and a very large chocolate brownie. The short form is, as you already know, that I can’t stop you. The very slightly longer form is . . . I want you to enjoy KES so if putting her on your Nook makes you happy, then please feel free. The very, very slightly longer yet version is that I would like to hope that there will eventually be some official pulled-together version of KES, but I can’t see that far into the future, and at the moment she’s only about 20,000 words long ( . . . I told you I’m writing ahead). You will be the first to know. . . .
* * *
* Tomorrow in the story. Tomorrow is a long way away in terms of episodes.
** Right down the road from E B White. Just by the way.
*** Although it’s true I had a stream outside my bedroom window.
† It also gives Cathy a chance to look over my shoulder before it goes public.
† Unless you’re going to hold it against me how long it takes me to write proper published books. Which would be very unkind of you.
Writery things
In the first place:
Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee. (Peter’s publishing daughter sent me this.)
Okay. That was your light relief.
Now, in the second place, a lot of you will have seen this already, including anyone who follows me on Twitter:
The headline reads: In E-Reader Age of Writer’s Cramp*, a Book a Year is Slacking. And any sane author’s reaction is: Killlllllllllllllllllll Meeeeeeeeeee. (Maureen Johnson’s retweet says: Here’s an article in the [New York Times] about how everyone is trying to kill authors.)
Well. Yes. I would love to attain a novel a year. Or a novel most years. Or a novel every eighteen months. Or something. And there are writers—a few—who can write two novels a year at least occasionally** and still stab you in the heart with their amazingness. Or if you’re producing stories that genuinely aren’t supposed to do anything but while away an hour or two—I hope I’m not getting myself into too much trouble here, but I do think there’s a place for stories that are only trying to divert: and, if I’m not getting myself into too much more trouble, I might suggest Agatha Christie as the sort of thing: I don’t think anyone goes to Agatha Christie for empathy or catharsis, do they?—then maybe, that’s maybe, you can write more than one book a year and keep your quality (and your pride in your work) up.***
But for the rest of us . . . for those of us who essay the occasional well-rounded character, who wish to evoke rather than report, who hope for readers who don’t quite shake the dust of our stories off their page-turning fingers at the end . . . I’m a slow writer. I know I’m slow. But I flatly don’t believe any mere human can produce two good books every year and go on doing it.†
I had a lot of lovely tweets from people†† saying they’d rather wait for books that have been written rather than not wait for those that have been churned out to an anti-human schedule. And I don’t really have a choice: this is how I am. This is how I write. If this doesn’t work, I am going to have to run away to the circus.††† I tell myself that the world has always claimed to be on the brink of final breakdown of one sort or another—I imagine this dates back to gossip around the fire just after that seditious object the wheel had been invented. But I admit that the particular part of my world that is disintegrating as a result of what is in many ways a great invention, the internet, worries me . . . more than a little.
To end this post on writery things, I give you, in the third place: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/books/review/the-writer-in-the-family.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I don’t, in fact, agree with a lot of it, but then I’ve also never been a member of the standard family, with growing-up children I’m somehow part responsible for and all that, so my view is skewed. But I love the exchange: ‘Would I have read anything you’ve written?’ from some clueless dweeb you’ve just been introduced to, and Rosenblatt’s reply, ‘How should I know?’ I’m going to remember that one.‡
But the paragraph that had me in hysterics is the one about E L Doctorow trying to write an excuse slip for his daughter, who had missed school the day before. YEEEEEEEEEEEES. This is exactly what happens when you pull your specialised, carefully conditioned, writery bits out of the rarefied atmosphere of fiction and try to make them produce a grocery list or a thank-you note or an email to the department store that sent you a toaster instead of an electric blanket. Yesssss.
Hee hee hee hee hee hee. Which is a much better place to both come in and go out.
* * *
* Which should be recategorised anyway as writer’s repetitive stress injury
** Peter did this more than once
*** Is this writing as craft rather than art? Sometimes you don’t want to be engaged. Sometimes you just want to sit quietly and drink your tea and read a rose catalogue.^ Sometimes you want your chair to have four legs and a seat and not be a dazzling heirloom for the ages when you stagger downstairs in the morning and reach for your electric kettle.
^ Credit card engagement is a different issue.
† Even Charles Dickens, for example^, took holidays, and the quality of his writing is drastically variable, from the mind-explodingly tremendous to the diabolically awful.
^ I’m reading Claire Tomalin’s biography of him right now. I knew he was—erm—a complex character and not all of it good, but the thing I probably find the most fascinating is how narrow the line is between socially aware and engaged literary genius with some personal issues and WHINING, SELF-ABSORBED COMPLETE TICK . . . who by the way wrote some fabulous stories and did some amazing things. You may have guessed I incline to the latter opinion. It’s all about him, all of the time. And I don’t deal well with the sins of the extrovert.
Fascinating book however. I recommend it. And it’s not that Dickens didn’t have to cope with more than one human’s fair share of bulltiddly: he did. I’d have drowned his unspeakable father, for example, and I’d’ve had apoplexy if I’d been trying to earn a living as a writer back in the days before there was an international copyright law. I am riveted by the standard accusations thrown at Dickens when he had the balls—and good for him—to stand up and say stealing people’s work is wrong. He is being greedy, sneered the newspapers, and he should be grateful that people want to read his books. Plus ça frelling frelling change. And we’ve even got, or anyway had, international copyright law for quite a while—although the whole e thing is busy taking that to bits too. Greedy? Grateful? How, pray tell, are us storytellers supposed to earn a living? How do you think we frelling eat and pay the mortgage if we don’t sell our stories? Leprechaun? Printing press in the cellar for counterfeit money? Wealthy indulgent lover? What? What? I get really bored with people who think that all writers are wealthy, but at least these people are acknowledging that being a professional writer involves money. The people who think that writers^ are supposed to give it away and be grateful if anyone wants it . . . should frelling try it some time. Show me someone who is giving it away and doesn’t have either another, paying job, a trust fund, or a joint bank account with a Fortune 500 CEO, and I’ll show you a hologram, an alien from another dimension, or a homeless bag person who is about to die of starvation.
Which is more or less where we came in . . .
^ I assume that painters, sculptors, jewellery-makers, knitters and so on have the same problem. Maybe it’s that we work in words that it seems to me we get so much (wordy) stick. Maybe it’s just that I’m a writer, I notice writer-aimed stick more.
†† Including a gratifying rant from our own Maren. Thank you. And a horrified fellow-feeling my-fingers-are-shrivelling from Jodi, who had already seen the article.
††† And to you who tweeted me about this too: hellhounds would love the circus, once they got a little used to the uproar. And if New Thing’s heroine can haul a rose-bush around in a pot, why can’t I? I can put it (or them) on the steps of my trailer every time we stop.
Peter, I admit, is a problem. I don’t think he’d like the circus at all.
‡ I can hear Merrilee clutching her forehead.
Caveats and clarifications
Ravenel is leaving the Muddlehampton Choir (in the lurch)!*
He’s retired, for pity’s sake, but like a lot of other old people who are only old chronologically**, he’s a consultant, and they love him in Bandar Seri Begawan. He’s been out there several times and that was supposed to be the end of his contract—but they’ve just offered him a longer-term one and he’s TAKING it, the ratbag.
I was all ready to be devastated . . . and then he started us on a new song*** last thing tonight which is so unutterably loathsome I found myself unable to pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth and sing it. Arrgh. People have frelling quit choirs for less. (It’s supposed to be funny. It isn’t. And the music is BORING.) So maybe I’ll like having Ravenel in Bandar Seri Begawan better than I expected. Meanwhile . . . the post of director/conductor is open† and to some extent the structure of the choir with it. NOW IS THE TIME FOR OISIN TO START THE NEW ARCADIA SINGERS. AND WE WILL SING NO LOATHSOME SONGS.††
* * *
The problem with writing the blog on fumes is that you tend not to say what you mean to say, or you leave stuff out, or you fail to express yourself clearly enough, or you don’t make all the caveats you should make. Caveat number one: I know I’ve said much of what I said last night before. But the doodles remain undone, and I owe you an update occasionally. Blogmom also needs to be able to say something useful to understandably plaintive non-blog-readers about what’s going on.
Catlady
Well, I am the one who originally suggested 2017 as a possible mailing date for the doodles,
Yes, I remember you ’17ers. I like you a lot.
and I’m sticking to that, so by my count, you’ve got five and a half years (if we’re counting to the Christmas season in 2017, so that we can, if we desire, give doodles as gifts. To ourselves.).
I’m also a strong believer in self-selected gifts. Who needs surprise when you can have exactly what you want?†††
And I am quite looking forward to Shadows, and am glad that it’s taking the time that the doodles would take. The motto I’ve been trying to live by recently is: there are always important things I’m neglecting in favor of the important things I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean what I’m doing is wrong.
Yes. I’m with you all the way on this one. Prioritizing, and all those clever punchy annoying business-speak words, only work so far. We’re still waiting for our thirty-six hour day. With the brain stamina to go with it.‡
katinseattle
Robin, stop whacking yourself over the head.
Huh? Um. How am I whacking myself over the head? I’m fairly cranky at fate, but then I am often cranky at fate. And I might have handled last year better, but that would mean going back to about this time last year and realising expeditiously that PEG II had a serious and insoluble from the then-current approach problem,‡‡ and when one’s critical errors start fading into the mists of time . . . maybe it’s just my short attention span, but I’m much more interested in coping with now. And it’s more what catlady said: I may be screwing up, but that doesn’t mean what I am doing is wrong. I’ve prioritised: SHADOWS must come first. This isn’t getting the doodles done. And I’m sorry about that—as I should be. That’s not whacking myself over the head. That’s being fate’s hellhounds’ chew-toy.
We’re here because we like and admire you.
Thank you! But some of the people who ordered books and doodles last autumn just wanted their merchandise.
Personally, I’m sorry for your sake that Shadows is taking longer than you wanted, but I’d much rather have quality McKinley than earlier McKinley.
Well, so would I . . . but it’s also not really my choice. The Story is the Story, as I keep saying. I can only do what it lets me do. And if it doesn’t like the quality of the blood flow it’ll make me find another vein. Ow.
lorelibrarian
As for the doodles, well, I’ve forgotten I sent off the money now, so it will feel like I’m getting a free amazing gift from the universe whenever it does arrive.
I love this.‡‡‡
* * *
* jmeadows
She doesn’t knit because nothing happens fast enough? Hee. Someone is clearly not a process knitter. I like the way knitting feels! I’m perfectly happy to wait for something to happen. (Though I don’t like waiting TOO long. I’m not made of patience, you know.)
This would be me too. Especially given that I’m still doing the knitting equivalent of moving my lips when I read, if I were into product I would be in big trouble. Certainly at my level—squares, and Very Basic Ribbing, knitting is meditative, and I can use all the calming options I can get. And wasting time winds me up something vicious, so it serves a dual purpose: the knitting itself is soothing, and the not wasting time is sort of soothing-plus. And I was casting off The World’s Longest Leg Warmer during break tonight. Because I’m not made of patience either^ and I would like to wear these things, that’s things, plural, as in TWO of them, next winter. . . .
^ Shock horror. Film at eleven.
** . . . Ahem.
*** Remember I said that nobody knows the playlist for the summer concert?
†Nice young Japheth is going to a new job inYorkshire or somewhere equally extreme at the end of the year, so he’s not a candidate. But we may have him through the summer concert if Ravenel slopes off early.
†† I will be sure to be on the board, and the first rule we will pass is that all items on the musical programme must be okayed by the board.^
^ The Muddles are looking for more board members . . . NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.+
+ Not unless we can pass this one little new rule. . . .
††† And some people want vampire muffins.
‡ Last night as I lay sleepless in my icy cold bed^ I was thinking about kinds of energy: creative, which overlaps with but is not the same as intellectual; emotional, which also overlaps with and adds resonance to creative, but is definitely not the same as, and which is in a constant running fire-fight with intellectual which is inconvenient, wasteful and stupid; and physical energy, which is a crucial support for all the rest, as well as necessary for hurtling, gardening, and singing exercises at your computer.^^ I no longer remember what it’s like to be juggling all this as a normal, un-ME’d^^^ person, but with ME you also have the spoons issue.^^^^ Different kinds of energy also demand different numbers of spoons. And I’m terrible at maths.
^ My electric blanket went phut the moment the temperature dropped back to gelid again. Thanks so much. Maybe there will be a nice sale on electric blankets in April.
^^ There’s at least one more but I’m not sure what to call it. Moral energy, possibly, which is a kind of immaterial resilience or fortitude.
^^^ And possibly younger. Something else I’ve said here before, I’d rather blame the ME for being stupid and feeble, than just that I’m getting old.
This link is also in the ‘about’ section of this blog. I have a very mild case, as ME—and lupus, and fibro, and a lot of other auto-immune things that lead with tiredness and pain and general offness—goes.
‡‡ And, you know, there’s a first time for everything. I could do expeditious one of these years. I could.
‡‡ This is also the argument for, for example, pre-ordering books. You can forget they’re coming. And then . . . what’s nicer than a desirable new book to read??
The Continued Non Arrival of Doodles
I went ringing at the abbey again tonight.
Pause.
More pause.
Even longer pause.
. . . I wonder how long before they ask me politely not to come back?
SIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.*
I then came home to a query from Blogmom about all those doodles and doodled books I haven’t sent out yet. Yes. I haven’t sent them out. I said that I was going to have the rest out by the end of March. I lied. I didn’t mean to lie, but I lied. I was at that time in the grip of the delusion that I would have finished SHADOWS . . . about a fortnight ago.**
I’m still working on SHADOWS. And as I keep moaning to everyone who doesn’t quickly run away from me, it’s going fine. It’s just not going fast enough. I’ve had to slow down, indeed, precisely because I’ve been ramming it through slightly faster than it’s wanted to go, and I came to the point with the third draft—which is usually my final one—that I had to slow down or risk botching the job. As it is I’m skating over stuff I didn’t want to skate over. I’m hoping I might get to use this world again—like ALBION takes place in SUNSHINE’s world—which might give me a chance to poke more ignorant fun at quantum physics and chaos theory. But I think the algebra is specific to this book, and the Japanese language and culture, which appear to be settling in for the long haul in my life***, are tied in SHADOWS to a specific character which is inconvenient since I don’t write sequels.†
And it’s hard to judge what to put on the blog—about anything, really. I’m never in a good mood when I wonder what kind of an absolutely weird impression of Robin McKinley I’m giving by the public persona who appears here. I don’t think I’m quite as TOTALLY FRELLING SELF OBSESSED as you’d be forgiven for thinking I am from these (virtual) pages: it’s just that I’m my own safest material, since I don’t have to worry about hurting, humiliating or infuriating anyone else when I talk about me.†† At the same time I’m so conscious of what I’m not saying about me that I genuinely can’t guess what I look like to all of you.†††
And . . . I don’t like whiners. If I whine here, I’m very sorry. My judgement was off that day(s). So I’m not telling you how the undone doodles pray on my conscience and how grim my office at the cottage is, full, as it also is, with heaps of books, lists, and mailing envelopes. Circumstances conspired—PEG II crashing and burning, and my then urgently trying to get on with SHADOWS as fast as possible—but that still leaves you waiting over six months for something you paid for last autumn.
Since I mostly write here about all the rushing around doing too much that I do, you would also be more than forgiven for thinking‡ that if I stopped flitting about the landscape and concentrated I would be getting both SHADOWS and doodles (etc) done a lot faster. You’ll just have to take my word for it both that it doesn’t work that way—and that there’s perhaps less flitting than you think. I work seven days, remember, and I don’t take holidays, or anyway I can’t remember the last time I took one. For one very minor example of this wombly balance: I guarantee that if I weren’t whacking myself silly over SHADOWS I would be getting on with learning how to ring the beastly abbey bells at least fractionally faster than I am.‡‡ Indeed I’d be getting on with bell ringing generally at least fractionally faster if I didn’t pretty invariably have no functioning intellect left by the time I go to bell practise in the evenings.‡‡‡
But believe me, you will be the first to know when I send SHADOWS to Merrilee and instantly morph spectacularly into a Doodle Factory.
* * *
* Well . . . I’m getting a lot of knitting done while I sit out. There’s no point even watching Stedman on twenty-seven: it’s just a storm of ropes to me. But I can sometimes learn something standing behind someone with his or her hands on a rope, and intently watching what they’re doing. And at the abbey I can use all the help about anything that I can get. So I stood behind the treble for some Cambridge Major^, because in other towers I can treble bob, which is what the treble does in Cambridge . . . and got horribly lost. So when, later, they called for Bristol Major, which is another treble-bobbing method, I decided to stick to knitting. But I’ve been tagged as a stander-behind—it’s one of these how-you’re-wired things: some people find standing behind of zero use—and one of the other ringers said to me afterward, oh, but you should have stood behind the treble again! I decided it would be impolitic to say I’d rather knit.
I was knitting on Monday at (bell) practise and Anthea, who did use to knit, and quite glamorous things too, says she doesn’t knit any more because ‘nothing happens fast enough’. But I knit in waste time: those three minutes at that exasperatingly long light on my way to Nadia’s, sitting out in bell towers, during break at the Muddles, waiting for my computer to stop sulking and do something.^^ And all that effort, even at my knitting speed, does blerg or bludge into something eventually: I now have the world’s longest leg warmer and I’d better cast off and start the other one. It would be nice to have a pair by November. . . .
^ To the extent that I ring it inside, I ring minor, which is six bells, not eight.
^^ Yes, I can sing while I knit. As necessary.
** Positive thinking doesn’t always work. Sometimes even putting something on the blog to make sure I do it doesn’t work.
*** Have I mentioned that I’ve found a language school in Hampshire that offers Japanese? I’ve told the woman who is my contact that I can’t commit to lessons till I’ve dealt with an overdue work project. Ahem. But this is so much old-unfinished-business-coming-back-to-bite-me, not a brand-new, for-godssake-McKinley-get-a-grip fascination. I’d be more inclined to see it as some kind of serendipity rather than actual unfinished business if it weren’t that Damarian has a certain amount of Japanese grammar in it—as well as some funny alphabet stuff. I only started writing down what I think I know about the Damarian language in the last ten or so years, when I would have told you I remembered nothing of Japanese except how to count to ten and say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. That’s true, but the Story Council apparently saw an opportunity and pounced.
† PEGASUS is one story in three books! It’s not a trilogy! The word ‘sequel’ will not be bandied here!
†† I have arguments with myself all the time. China is sometimes broken.
††† Don’t tell me. I’m sure I don’t want to know.
‡ Simultaneously grinding your teeth optional
‡‡ This is hardly a silver lining, but it did occur to me that . . . the abbey has always been my best local opportunity to learn some of the slightly-more-upper-level stuff that the New Arcadia band can’t reliably support. But given how steep the learning curve for adapting to the abbey’s bells is, the only way I’d ever have stuck the course is by something like this—having cast myself off from New Arcadia first. As it is . . . I’ll stick the course unless they tell me to go away.
‡‡‡ I write the blog every night on fumes, okay?
Blood-pressure headache
So Pooka, who came off her drip feed at 100% this morning, by this evening, after almost two hours of Japanese lessons* while hurtling and over an hour Skyping** with a friend*** while recovering from hurtling, was redlining again. The problem with plugging her into the laptop during working hours instead of the mains/wall last thing, is that the iTunes store pops up and starts blandishing you.† So I, easily distracted little hussy that I am, downloaded a (cheap) ap that is supposed to make typing on your frelling device less of an occasion for practising vocal exercises.
Aaaaaaand it won’t load. It downloaded onto the laptop all right and appears in my app library. But it won’t climb into Astarte, which is what I want it for. Astarte’s main failing as the perfect bedtime companion†† is that you can’t type on her. I’m kind of fascinated by all these people who apparently churn out great novels on their iPads: not me. I can’t even type two-fingered without going qwk7\7+km££BLERG?xx#. Arrgh. But the relentless little error message in this case says ‘app will download when you are logged into iTunes on your computer’. I AM LOGGED IN ON MY COMPUTER YOU FRELLING PIECE OF CLOTHESHANGER WIRE AND CHEAP GLUE.††† I AM SITTING HERE STARING AT THE APP IN THE ‘ROBIN’S LIBRARY’ SCREEN. And the ‘help’ is useless, of course: it doesn’t even allow for the possibility of troubleshooting: all of its answers appear to be based on the indisputable fact that Apple is god and therefore perfect and its worshippers are merely sometimes rather stupid and have to have the same things to explained to them more than once in a patronising tone. ARRRRRRGH.
So in this spirit of weekend cheer and relaxation‡ I thought I’d re-answer one of those questions that comes up again and again AND AGAIN AND AGAIN because . . . sigh. Because people not in the publishing industry don’t know any better. But if I’m lucky a few of them, who will now not write me emails, will be reading the blog tonight.
. . . I am a very devoted kindle reader. I had your book, Sunshine, recommended to me by friends. Eager to read it, I search on my kindle right away. I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I found that it was not on the kindle, despite being a popular book. Perhaps, you would consider having it put on there, so that ereaders like myself can enjoy it.
Any of my books’ availability or lack thereof in any format has essentially nothing to do with me. Nothing.‡‡ I have no control over this and—once I’ve signed the contract with the publisher, and contracts pretty much all now include electronic rights as standard—ebooks as well as all that hard copy stuff are the publisher’s problem. Just like getting the book out in any and all other formats is. Your contract will say that the publisher does have to publish, and if it doesn’t you get your book back. (Which is not what you want. You want it published.) And you can lobby for the format du jour, or something special—like the illustrated ROSE DAUGHTER which we had to get special permission for.
But if you assume that all the writer does is write you will not be far wrong in most cases. Yes, some writers are a lot more involved with the rest of the business than I am—I don’t know and don’t want to know as much as I can possibly avoid knowing‡‡‡ because, ahem, I am prone to blood pressure headaches and chewing the wallpaper over something I can do nothing about is too frelling demoralising. Yes, you can write letters and make phone calls—and badger your long-suffering agent—and get to know people and network and some writers are good at this, and some of them do make a difference to the rest of us. And I’m grateful. But I have no talent in that direction. ‘Negotiation’ and ‘calm rational discussion of a controversial subject’ are not in my skill set. I want to kill myself over jacket art regularly even now, when I do have some leverage.
I’m actually surprised SUNSHINE isn’t available as an ebook§; mostly it’s the books that came out before electronic publishing was beginning to be an issue that get trapped in the mincer. But if it isn’t, there’ll be a reason. The publishing behemoth regiment is still having trouble lurching into the electronic age, and older books by people who aren’t JK Rowling and Dan Brown fall through the cracks sometimes.
And self-publishing? Not me. Thank the gods for publishers, however paralytically, blood-pressure-headachingly behemothy they can be. I do read some of the articles (on line, speaking of ereading) about sisters doing it for themselves. I can barely do the laundry, and every year when I’m trying to produce a full set of bank statements for the accountant—I fail. If I tried to self-publish I’d be reading the want ads for shelf-restocker openings§§ within the year.
* * *
* Atama ga itai desu. Which may mean ‘I have a headache’. Note: when they say that Japanese [grammatical] particles are a nightmare, believe them.
** Who is coming to visit. And thinks we should SING something together. Aside from my extreme peculiarity on the subject of other people hearing me sing—and, after all, she would be singing with me—we have a slight repertoire problem: I sing classical and folk. She sings musical theatre and barbershop. Can This Friendship Be Saved.^
^ I’m not sure. She hates Sweeney Todd. I can just about allow this in someone who doesn’t like musicals generally+. But in an avowed musical-theatre devotee? This is like someone who claims to love dogs making an exception for sighthounds. The door’s that way, honey.
+ No, it’s not an opera.
*** On the sofa, resisting entropy and the strange hierarchical struggles of hellhounds. Guys. It’s a sofa. Play nice or the hellgoddess will go all hellgoddessy on your ass.
† I’m puzzled that they haven’t gone the amazon route and started targeting you. Hey, last time you were here you bought Demolition Bingo and Space Pastry Chef! We’re sure you’d love Washing Machine Lint vs Sink Elbow Trap!^
^ Has anyone played Pizza vs Skeletons? Which sounds about as likely.
†† Hey, I’m old. And possibly a little strange.
††† Ee, ah, eeee ah, eeee aaah eeee ah.
‡ Are you KIDDING? I’m writing a novel. Novel-writing is a 24/7 activity.^
^Barring hellhounds, blogs, and scream—I mean singing.
‡‡ In deference to Hannah and Merrilee’s sensitivities, I am NOT CAPITALISING THAT SENTENCE.
‡‡‡ Yes. It’s a very good thing I have an excellent agent.
§ No, I’m not going to go doublecheck on amazon. If you want to, feel free. I avoid pages with my professional self on them like six kinds of interstellar plague. And even if the person who wrote to me is wrong and it is available, and she or her frelling device was having a brain spasm, the principle remains: once the story I’ve written is out of my hands, it’s out of my hands.
§§ Shelf restocking at a big supermarket during the graveyard shift sounds quite restful when novel-in-progress is being unendurably wayward. And no, SHADOWS isn’t. As I keep moaning to Merrilee, if I hadn’t been trying to finish it in five months it would be going really well. Unfortunately . . .