(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: 2009-02-11 01:19 am (UTC)It's a quarter past one in the morning, I'm only awake because I spent the whole evening cleaning my oven (now spotless, thanks for asking, and the hob is making progress too), and...and you do this to me. When I have work in the morning. My heart is racing. I get to read Animagus Winter.
...
Surely one chapter won't take that long...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:40 am (UTC)Um, did you want readers to think of Black Books when you named it Dusk Books?
*looks askance at the fannishness of that in an original novel*
But, as I say, looking forward to it!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-12 02:36 am (UTC)I do notice that the name of the bookshop isn't given in the first chapter, itself, just in your introduction. You could check your later chapters to see if it's ever actually named in the text, and then decide what to do.
I enjoyed reading the chapter, last night, and am eager to see more of the book!
Um, do you want editing suggestions? I saw some places where I think commas were missing (though I do tend to overuse commas, myself) and some places where shorter and simpler sentences would have read more easily. Details available if wanted...
Thanks for writing this and sharing it with us!
Dances
no subject
Date: 2009-02-12 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:23 am (UTC)Having said all that, off to read. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:44 am (UTC)Of course, you're not going to tell them, but what if they make you sign a contract, like, that it's not been published before? And then they find out?
Mebbe if you only put a few chapters up and call them teasers?
Oh, I dunno. It's your novel and I'd love to see it, but I'd feel bad if it didn't get professionally published because all of us saw it first.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 04:45 am (UTC)*speechless*
Even with all the rejection (stupid publishers don't know what they're missing!), I'm excited that you're preparing for the publishing world. I feel like you're going on an adventure and this time, you're taking the whole cafe with you. Yay!
*off to read*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 08:46 am (UTC)I must be reasonable and work right now but I will read the first chapter before the end of the day.
This is so incredibly exciting. It deserves a Tamaki icon.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:25 am (UTC)I am so very excited about this. (And The Dead Isle now that it's finished.) There goes my list of Books to Read.
2500 copy-editors. Sounds scary to me. :o)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:42 pm (UTC)Better 2500 copy-editors now than 2500 critics later...:D
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:05 pm (UTC)squee all over the placecomment insightfully now.no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:19 pm (UTC)**goes off to read**
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 06:05 pm (UTC)Excuse me while I scream.
*incoherent joy*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-12 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:47 am (UTC)And it hadda be so good....
Two tiny opinionated comments :
<-technically that’s a question.
<delete, not necessary, sentence would be more interesting without. .