(no subject)
Feb. 10th, 2009 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupOkay, kids, bring the popcorn and gather around. It's time for Sam to tell a story. Fortunately I think this story has quite a good ending: the unveiling of the Sekrit Project. :)
Four years ago, I moved to Austin to look for work after grad school. I wasn't having much luck, and I was living with my parents and basically confined to the house all day. After about four months of this I realised that if I didn't do something to validate my existence I was going to do something I'd regret, so I decided to write a novel. Starting in September, I wrote almost every night -- from ten to midnight, usually, or sometimes a little longer. I averaged about 900 words a day and gave myself Saturday nights off. That went on for four months.
I didn't talk about it because I was hoping to shop it around when it was done. I did finish it, edit it, and shop it, though none of the eighty-odd agents I sent it to took me up on it. I moved to Chicago, got some work, forgot about the book. A couple of weeks ago, while I was migrating hard drives, I took a look at it for the first time in two years and realised why it never sold: it was terrible.
So I rewrote it, using what I'd learned in the process of writing The Dead Isle. I cut about ten thousand words, added about thirty thousand, and included several subplots and characters that had been absent the first time around.
Where it gets interesting for most of you, especially those of you who were around for the first run of Cartographer's Craft, is the plot. I had no idea what I wanted to write about, and very few stories I wanted to tell, so I consulted Ellis Graveworthy: I went to Cartographer's Craft and looked up the plots of the novels he'd written.
Wizard Bird was too close to HP -- it was always meant to be a satire of it -- and Two Kneazles was as well, plus hello whole boatloads of historical research. Shop Gods was possible, but would have also required a lot more research than I was willing to put into what was essentially a survival mechanism at the time.
I wrote Animagus Winter.
I changed the location, shook up the plot until it wasn't dependent on the HP-verse anymore, and called it Nameless. It's a sort of magical-reality ode to small towns, with a little bit of mask theory and agrarian earth witchery thrown in for good measure. It had to settle for a few years before I was ready to really own it, but I am now.
I'd like to know what all of you think of it, before I give it one more rewrite and start looking at publishing again. I didn't want to post it all in a whack, because that's a bit overwhelming, so instead I'll be posting it in chapters. It'll be just like most of the fics I post, except that it's complete so I can schedule regular postings (like I did for Two Centres). New chapters will be going up three times a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Given that there are thirteen chapters, it'll be about a month's worth of new fiction, which seems like the right length of time. Sort of a Cafe Book Club.
So, without further fuss, I'd like to introduce you to Christopher Dusk, our narrator and the proprietor of Dusk Books in the small midwestern town of Low Ferry, Illinois. He'll take it from here. We both hope you enjoy it. :)
( The first week in September that year saw the heat of summer not yet faded in Chicago... )
Four years ago, I moved to Austin to look for work after grad school. I wasn't having much luck, and I was living with my parents and basically confined to the house all day. After about four months of this I realised that if I didn't do something to validate my existence I was going to do something I'd regret, so I decided to write a novel. Starting in September, I wrote almost every night -- from ten to midnight, usually, or sometimes a little longer. I averaged about 900 words a day and gave myself Saturday nights off. That went on for four months.
I didn't talk about it because I was hoping to shop it around when it was done. I did finish it, edit it, and shop it, though none of the eighty-odd agents I sent it to took me up on it. I moved to Chicago, got some work, forgot about the book. A couple of weeks ago, while I was migrating hard drives, I took a look at it for the first time in two years and realised why it never sold: it was terrible.
So I rewrote it, using what I'd learned in the process of writing The Dead Isle. I cut about ten thousand words, added about thirty thousand, and included several subplots and characters that had been absent the first time around.
Where it gets interesting for most of you, especially those of you who were around for the first run of Cartographer's Craft, is the plot. I had no idea what I wanted to write about, and very few stories I wanted to tell, so I consulted Ellis Graveworthy: I went to Cartographer's Craft and looked up the plots of the novels he'd written.
Wizard Bird was too close to HP -- it was always meant to be a satire of it -- and Two Kneazles was as well, plus hello whole boatloads of historical research. Shop Gods was possible, but would have also required a lot more research than I was willing to put into what was essentially a survival mechanism at the time.
I wrote Animagus Winter.
I changed the location, shook up the plot until it wasn't dependent on the HP-verse anymore, and called it Nameless. It's a sort of magical-reality ode to small towns, with a little bit of mask theory and agrarian earth witchery thrown in for good measure. It had to settle for a few years before I was ready to really own it, but I am now.
I'd like to know what all of you think of it, before I give it one more rewrite and start looking at publishing again. I didn't want to post it all in a whack, because that's a bit overwhelming, so instead I'll be posting it in chapters. It'll be just like most of the fics I post, except that it's complete so I can schedule regular postings (like I did for Two Centres). New chapters will be going up three times a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Given that there are thirteen chapters, it'll be about a month's worth of new fiction, which seems like the right length of time. Sort of a Cafe Book Club.
So, without further fuss, I'd like to introduce you to Christopher Dusk, our narrator and the proprietor of Dusk Books in the small midwestern town of Low Ferry, Illinois. He'll take it from here. We both hope you enjoy it. :)
( The first week in September that year saw the heat of summer not yet faded in Chicago... )
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:06 pm (UTC)Maybe I need to teach little!Sam to cook...
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Date: 2009-02-10 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:36 pm (UTC)Secondly, I have a question: What are publishers' opinions on books that were originally posted online? I've always wondered.
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:32 pm (UTC)Publishers consider online publishing to be a first-run. They don't like to print books that have already had a first-run, so they look askance at books that were published online first.
Which is why we don't tell them. :D
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Date: 2009-02-10 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:59 pm (UTC)And I'd like to congratulate you for finding a way to be productive during such a hard time then, even if you didn't end up liking what you wrote. I've been there and I didn't manage to write a novel. SIGH.
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:48 pm (UTC)Well, your stuff comes second, because I spend my summers without internet access. So I have to finish them before July.
I will do a lot of reading over Feb break.
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:50 pm (UTC)If you don't get to Dead Isle or Nameless before you leave school, hit me up with an email and I'll send the full-text files to you.
(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:57 pm (UTC)I am so excited.
(I'm usually more of a lurker, but this is too big not to comment on.)
~ c.
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:58 pm (UTC)*bounce* *bounce* *BOUNCE!!!!!*
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Date: 2009-02-11 12:11 am (UTC)OOPS.
Seriously, I'm so excited! I was already excited to sit down and re-read J&E...er, The Dead Isle, but now THIS TOO??? *flails*
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Date: 2009-02-11 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:18 am (UTC)<3 <3 <3 (as some Cafe denizen whose name I forget pointed out a while back, the hearts DO look like boobs!)
*peruses Ch 1 while sipping tea* I do like the atmosphere of Low Ferry, Christopher's contented dealings with his neighbours, and young Clare's reading style! Well done Sam!!
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Date: 2009-02-11 12:21 am (UTC)Hearts = boobs was me, actually *grins* I BOOB YOU!
I owe you an email too -- didn't get to the research I'd planned today but will tomorrow, promise.
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Date: 2009-02-11 12:35 am (UTC)I'm really look forward to reading this, since your writing was how I started reading your LJ in the first place, and this sounds pretty damn awesome.
But I really posted to say that, as someone who is currently living with my parents, looking for work, and confined to the house for prolonged periods of time, hearing about someone doing something actually productive with that situation has completely renewed by inspiration to actually do something justifiable with my time. So you are now my inspiration, and I really thank you for that. =) (I'm sorry if I sound even more like a creeper after that paragraph.)
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Date: 2009-02-11 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-11 01:01 am (UTC)Postscript: A request
Date: 2009-02-11 01:04 am (UTC)Re: Postscript: A request
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Date: 2009-02-11 01:07 am (UTC)