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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... )
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:58 pm (UTC)*bounce* *bounce* *BOUNCE!!!!!*
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Date: 2009-02-10 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:03 am (UTC)Closest I've ever got to getting a novel published...I got a letter of interest from an agent I solicited once, but he decided not to take it when he saw the full manuscript. That was an early draft of Nameless, in fact.
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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 12:13 am (UTC)Do you think you can reapproach the agent once you've edited and revised Nameless? Or does "rejection" mean "rejection 4eva"?
Also, when you do get published (I HAVE FAITH), what will you do when everyone in the Cafe learns of your offline identity? Or do you have humanity's faith in us that we won't do anything stupid/idiotic/etc.? Or will you take a pseudonym?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:16 am (UTC)LIFE OF SAM
or "How my life ranges between a Monty Python sketch and a Monty Python movie (with a dash of blues, oil, and theatery). Sort of chronicled from 2003-2009."
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 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:23 am (UTC)I don't even recall which agent it was now, I sent out well over eighty inquiries. I could re-solicit but I think I'd be...kind of embarrassed.
As for anonymity...well, plenty of writers are recluses :D
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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.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:01 am (UTC)Postscript: A request
Date: 2009-02-11 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:07 am (UTC)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...
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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!
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Date: 2009-02-11 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:23 am (UTC)Having said all that, off to read. ;)
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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.
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Date: 2009-02-11 04:19 am (UTC)I thought the same thing. I was always incredibly fond of it.
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Date: 2009-02-11 04:34 am (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*