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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) robinmckinley | |
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Preliminary announcement: the footnotes are gathered under their individual answers. So there are two lots here. If this is a error, I can shove them all down at the bottom next time. >Then I wasted a lot of time writing The Third Damar Novel which got turned down.
AARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! {insert pathetic whimpering here} Damar!Novel
"Third Damar Novel"
I cannot possibly be the only one reading this and going *eeep* Damar! *eeep* Novel! *eeep* and dissolving into chaotic wordlessness. There is a third Damar novel? And some idiot person turned it down?
::faints::
::comes to::
Would it help if I wrote someone and asked them to publish it? I'd give teeth for a copy. The stupidity of publishers never ceases to amaze me, and I am not even a writer! Oh gods, no!!! Did you finish and then they turned it down? That's terrible! Also, a personal argh, now that I realize this exists in some fashion or other. There's a third Damar novel that got Turned Down?! Talk about weeping & wailing & gnashing of teeth! To whom do I write to tell them off? (Hopefully making no grammatical errors while writing. :-)
My copy of Sunshine gives Penguin Books and even an address. Would this be the right publisher for Damar? My Damar books are, alas, packed away at this particular moment. Off to your web site. I suppose I could get a publishers name from Amazon. Obviously if you think it's better if I don't write I won't. The relationship between authors & publishers is their own. *****Then I wasted a lot of time writing The Third Damar Novel which got turned down.*****
Dear gods. Reading this line made me literally nauseated. Don't be surprised if you're overwhelmed with indignant responses to this throwaway comment, Robin! Okay, now let’s all please take a deep breath and get a grip here. I was answering comments that night late even for me, and I was aware when I mentioned the third Damar novel without further explanation that I was probably making a mistake but I was too tired to think about it, and it’s just like that on this blog sometimes.* And I’m sorry for winding you up, which is what I manifestly did do. BUT. Think about it, guys. Publishers want to make money. They didn’t turn it down on whim. They turned it down because they thought it wasn’t good enough. The thing that went wrong long-term is the way it got turned down. My editor somehow neglected to tell me she would like to see rewrites. She just told me everything that was wrong with it and rang off. And I went into shock. Well, I’m a delicate flower about some things. By the time my poor agent had represented to her that this was not the way to handle an author known, not to say infamous, as a bundle of nerves, and she’d rung back to make amends, it was kind of too late. The book** still exists, but I’ve never been able to steel myself to look at it again.
And no, I won't give you the editor's address so you can write her nasty letters. Blunders and miscalculations happen and she didn't mean to mess me over. And I'm not the world's easiest person to work with. If you really want to torture yourselves, let me tell you there’s also a fourth Damar novel. It’s still only notes, but then that means I haven’t botched it yet either. If I live long enough, I’ll write both of them. But please . . . spare me any, um, squeeing on how much you’d like to read it/them. Begging and pleading (or for that matter shouting and demanding) will only make me want to run away. I write what I can/have to, and I have almost no choice about it. I’m reasonably sure that if I live long enough, I’ll write at least these two more novels about Damar. I honestly don’t know if the sequel to SUNSHINE exists. I don’t really write sequels, you know. Harry and Aerin are linked, but their stories are separate. These other two** novels about Damar are also separate, from each other and from Harry and Aerin. And there’s definitely another book about SUNSHINE’s world waiting, fairly close up in the writing queue, but it’s not about Sunshine. * It’s like that today too, come to that. ** Or book-shaped object *** The third one has expressed a preference to be more than one, and I admit this appeals to me as a way of avoiding the Trilogy Trap, but I won’t know till I try to write it. Again. One of the things that went wrong with it the first time is that it appeared to be proliferating out of control—to where I couldn’t keep all of it in my head at once—and I panicked and lopped off the first bit and pretended it was a stand-alone book. That’s one of the things wrong. Most of this is on my web site somewhere too. I suppose that’s why I was careless about mentioning the third one at all. Since I’d already admitted to its existence on my web site I vaguely assumed that the Third But Failed Damar novel was known to exist. Well, semi-exist, that being the point. Thank you for answering all those comments in a blog post! I used to read comments regularly when you first started the blog, but I don't really have time to keep up any more Yes. This is what I'm afraid of. I know there are at least a few more of you around since I’ve had emails to this effect—and what’s the statistical guess that for every letter or remark you receive about something, there are x who agree silently? Since the reason I'm blogging is To Get Myself Out There As Per Instructions from Publisher (and Agent) I’d better be paying attention to what does and doesn't work to this end. Furthermore answering comments in an entry sometimes is also clearly part of my strategy for eluding the baleful clutches of the Time Monster . . . but I have to say that in my flounderings of answering comments this way I’m wasting an awful lot of time organising the suckers. Sigh. Maybe my new streamlined unperverse-comments-handling blog will be better for all of us. I had concluded that there simply were no pictures of you out there, and you must prefer it that way. (I still have more or less that impression...) It is a correct impression. I hate author photos because they lie. Nobody is a human being in one squirrelly photo, and pre-internet one squirrelly photo is usually all you got.* And—Curmudgeon Alert—the only acceptable reason for wanting to see a photo of the author is to see her as a human being. Anything else is voyeurism. I don’t go to cons and things because I find them exhausting and overwhelming, but I don’t not go because I don’t want to be seen; I’m not that kind of a recluse, and that some people come to see me to see me doesn’t bother me. I’m not a pain in the butt about photos to make any kind of mystery. ** Hey, I’m a human being. Deal with it. I’ll probably even let you take my photo. Probably. On the understanding that I won’t see it in Publishers Weekly. But even staring at me for thirty seconds in a signing queue is still some clue about human beingness***: I guess I’m saying that I believe that you become you in motion. This is perhaps especially true for those of us who are fidgets. Tim Podell’s Good Conversations!—which suggestion is what the above poster was thanking me for—is a series of videotape interviews with kids' and YA authors. Mine is about twenty minutes’ worth. I agreed to it because it seemed to me to bridge the gap between squirrelly photo and live meeting, but since my Good Conversation only sold about three and a half copies, I think, it didn’t bridge much of anything.† There also used to be a little video clip talking head on the web site; I haven’t checked lately.†† But if you do get a look at me there, remember that it’s a me from over ten years ago. As I said in my original answer to the question, I do look pretty much like that still, but older and scraggier. ††† But now we have the internet and the alternative to one squirrelly photo is a lot of squirrelly photos where the cumulative effect might go some way toward Author As Human Being. And certainly as an adjunct to something as, um, motile as this blog, a lot of squirrelly photos ought to do the job okay. ‡ And I really am going to start hanging photos as soon as I get moved to my new blog.‡‡ Although it’ll be mostly hellhounds and Hampshire countryside to begin with. I’m going to have to find someone to take photos. Peter is hopeless. ‡‡‡
* Or anyway the occasional very squirrelly photo, including a blurred smudge or two in a trade or fan mag, and the blurring may be because I’ve said No Photos and some charming person has stuck on a telephoto lens and taken it anyway. No, I am not joking.
*** Although it’s true that in a marketing photo they’ll remove the dark circles under your eyes. Which, since presumably it wasn’t taken at a con, you don’t have. † It’s too expensive for ordinary human beings but I thought there’d be a library market.
†† Later That Same Evening Note—I’m usually writing these entries away from my internet connection—I’ve just wasted about fifteen minutes trying to make the little ratbag run and I can’t, either from the Good Conversations! web site or via the link on my web site. Maybe you can. There is however a tiny photo. And that fairy sitting on my shoulder is a clematis flower on the wall behind me.
††† Much more important, if you track down a copy, please be aware it's so old it's before BUFFY. My declared favourite TV programme in that interview is DEEP SPACE NINE.
‡ Well, it works for Neil Gaiman. Although he has a lot of live clips too. I’m not planning on flying that high.^
^ . . . Splat.
‡‡ I’m struggling through the Steep Learning Curve stage right now. ‡‡‡ But as we know he has other virtues. Tags: comment comments, round-up answers
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Comments
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[1] [2]
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: January 12th, 2008 03:08 am (UTC) |
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video clip and sales
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Yes, the clip is there, and I hope that the full video includes more pictures of the "old" house and the garden. Having bought some of the "conversations" for my library, that would seem pretty standard ... Anyway, there's this great site called World Cat (not something to be chased by a hellhound) which is a sort of world wide on-line library catalog. So, one can type in a title, author or whatever and get the catalog info AND a list of the libraries which own the item. I set it up to show the location of copies according to how far the libraries are from my home.
Since my brother lives in Maine, and now that I am retired and I (in theory) have more time to wander around, I expect I'll head over to Colby College one of these days to watch it there. Anyway, the sales seem to have been better out west, or maybe that's just where schools and libraries have decent budgets. It is available on DVD, so there is no longer a format problem for those in other countries.
So now anxious authors can check out whether their books are available in those libraries which have been included in World Cat.
And yes, there are those of us who read the comments and say to ourselves, I agree with that, and then decide that we won't take up more of your time posting anything, when the topic has obviously been commented to death.
I do hope I live long enough to see more Damar novels ... Dad's 86th birthday is tomorrow so you have a while to get them right, as I intend to live at least as long as my parents have. By the way, when talking recipes ... I have a killer variation on Martha Stewart's Chocolate Crepe Cake which generally provokes stunned silence, blissful faces, and reverent, careful movements with forks. Dad gets his first one tomorrow.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: January 12th, 2008 04:15 am (UTC) |
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de-lurking
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Well...I am coming out of hiding to admit to having NEVER before read any of the previous posts comments (I can only blame this on extreme blog addictions and internet shopping, OH and knitting which all together consume more time than anyone could ever possibly imagine, OH and a cat, but sadly no, not a life...as you have probably guessed by now) and I wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed stumbling upon your site (through Amazon, during excessive internet shopping). Please know that it is lovely for us to hear about the good times along with the worrisome and we will take whatever books you send our way. We like you, though apparently you are difficult.
P.S. i have to confess that I haven't read your last book due to my obsessively imagining that if I only wait a little longer Amazon will surely have it in paperback.
P.S. #2 Neil Gaiman is really cool but A GUY. They are not quite as worried when it comes to live appearances and photographs. This may have alot to do with his always popping up in a black shirt and leather coat. Expectations are not that high.
Sincerely,
gunter
kgunter.blogspot.com (I am including since I wasn't smart enough to figure out the cool features for signing in that will prove once and for all that I am not, in fact, a robot).
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: January 12th, 2008 04:22 am (UTC) |
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*****I guess I’m saying that I believe that you become you in motion.*****
I agree. I, at least, have never been able to tell much of importance about another person from a photo. I've never understood (and, frankly, never really believed) people who say they can read all kinds of character traits from still photos. Even videos don't give you more than a fraction of what you get from being present with someone in person. It's not what you've got, but what you DO with it that tells people who you are. And a large part of that doing is in energy levels in the body, etc.
*****Tim Podell’s Good Conversations!—which suggestion is what the above poster was thanking me for—is a series of videotape interviews with kids' and YA authors. Mine is about twenty minutes’ worth. I agreed to it because it seemed to me to bridge the gap between squirrelly photo and live meeting, but since my Good Conversation only sold about three and a half copies, I think, it didn’t bridge much of anything.*****
Hey! *I* have a copy. Actually, I have copies of the conversations with you and Cynthia Voigt and Madeleine L'Engle. (I think I have a fourth as well, but the person it's with is escaping my memory at the moment.)
Judith
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I go away from internet for a month and all kinds of interesting things are told --isn't that just like life? *very dry, making faces at herself* It is lovely to have good things to read now that I've come back, though, and your posts have been full of them recently. Thank you. ^^
I know I have always hoped for more of your work, but except for the inclusion of Gonturan in both books I don't think I ever felt that Hero and the Crown and Blue Sword were connected in that deep-and-vital siamese-twin fashion that so many novels in the Fantasy and SF genres are. For which lack of immediate dependency I quite thank you. I am not an attractive person when I am in the grips of Sequel-Ferreting Fever, and I am fairly sure that the most imprudent thing I have done in my entire life was to give Amazon my credit card information. Books keep appearing in my mailbox and I do not know how or why.
Leaving The Book Conundrum piled with all the other inexplicables --Loch Ness, Bermuda Triangle, red sock in white laundry-- well, like I said, both Hero and Blue Sword did seem to me to stand completely on their own --enriching to read together, definitely, but it's not like scooping Two Towers out of Lord of the Rings if one hasn't read one or the other. The older I get, the more I value that quality in my reading material: books which can be read alone almost always seem to be better put together than those that must lean.
All of which is mostly me thinking and typing at the same time through the long bumpy approach to the notion of a third and fourth Damar book --it's elating, and the twelve year-old in me who fell asleep so many nights under the bed with a stolen flashlight and my very battered copy of Hero is doing a shameless and delighted shimmy of glee at the very idea. But at the same time it sounds like the whole process has been very fraught for you and Your Sanity (>) Sequel any day. It's honestly almost enough just to know that the third book exists somewhere out there. I can never quite rid myself of the notion that all characters, once they've finished their stint in whatever book or movie, go have tea together in a great imaginary break room, and I always think it must be terribly sad for the ones who get stranded back there and never get any sort of end to their stories. But so long as the right someone has a notion, has thought it through, I figure that comes close enough for them and they can get on with their lives.
I am not actually certifiable. Just sentimental, I suspect. *wry* I hate absolutely nothing so much as a story ending.
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I must be one of the few Robin Mcklinley fans who hasnt read the Damar books yet. So im not squeeing about the possibility of more Damar stories, just, er, more stories.
I plan on spreading your books over a long period of time so I dont have to wait impatiently for every single new one you produce. Im currently leisurely reading my way through Rose Daughter, and I have Dragonhaven by my bed ready for when I cant bear to not pick it up anymore. It pleases me greatly that I still have so many more to read, I just have to go and search for them, seeing as most bookshops here in the UK seem to only carry a few of your books!
Having said that, I wanted to add that I've discovered hearing your voice on this blog has changed the way I relate to your books a little. I find myself thinking about the author behind the writing, about why you wrote this bit, or that. Its quite fun, but I admit it makes it harder to get so immersed in the story. It made me think that actually, writing is quite revealing of the authors personality. Like any art, a little piece of the creator goes into every creation, and writing is probably one of the most intimate of crafts.
okay, I'm gonna stop the arty farty bullcrap now and let you get on with things ;)
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