storytelling

I just had an email from Leti:

I finally finished reading Fire Along the Sky and I just wanted to tell you how much I love this series!! I've already read Into The Wilderness, Dawn on a Distant Shore, and Lake in the Clouds twice. I can't wait for Queen of Swords to come out! I read the sneak peak at the end of Fire Along the Sky and I am so confused!!! I know you won't tell me but I'll ask anyway :-)

In the prologue, is Jennet pregnant with Luke's child (if she is, then she is 9 months along - I did the math) or did she already have Luke's child? She talks about seeing her child in the water and then resting her hands on her own great belly. Was seeing her child in the water an illusion? Did I just totally read that wrong?

Leti is confused, and so am I.

Let me say first that I don't myself have a copy of the soft cover edition of FAS. I just emailed yesterday to ask about where my copies got to, but the short and long of the situation is this:

I sent a longish Queen of Swords excerpt into my editor to be included at the end of the FAS paperback. From Leti's question it seems as though they might not have used the entire bit I sent. If that's the case, then what you'll get at the end of the paperback of FAS is the same thing I posted here, and I mislead you when I posted here a few days ago that the excerpt was longer. But unintentionally.

So let me figure this all out (I'll go into town and buy a copy of the darn book) and then get back to you. If it is indeed the case that the whole excerpt wasn't included, I may post it here to make up for that misunderstanding.

This is the passage that has Leti asking questions:

The lagoon spread out before her in the dim light. She held her breath and waited. A ripple, another. The surface of the water moved and broke.

Hello. She whispered the word while the bulbous body in the water rolled and rolled. Then another appeared beside it, smaller: her child. Water sliding off gray-green skin, a rounded hip, the long curved line of back.

She stepped out of her shoes and into the cool grasp of the water, thought of swimming out to them. To play among the selkies, and learn their language so that she might ask them for shelter and sanctuary. For herself and her child.

Her hands rested on the great curve of her own belly. The life inside it flexed and turned, another swimmer in a silent sea.

You'll note that this prologue takes place called The Island of the Manatees, the creatures that Jennet visits in the lagoon -- a mother and newborn. She has never seen a manatee before and thinks of them as selkies. (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of this beautiful photograph on Dan Neri's website.)

Beyond those observations, let me say that you're right, Jennet is about nine months pregnant. Hopefully now all is clear.

Posted by at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Argh Ink Jenny Crusie is getting set to write one third of a book... well hell, I can't remember the details except she's doing her prep work for her main character, called Mare. The other two contributors to this book are doing the same for their characters, and then there's a meeting with a lot of alcohol where they compare notes and put together a work/battle plan.

Jenny also does a collage for her characters/stories. This is something I do in a smaller way, usually on the computer screen. Because if I let myself go into the studio and start playing with paint and paper, dog only knows when you'll see me again. Procrastination Central. In fact, I should put a sign on the door that says exactly that.

So I'm working on Pajama Jones, for Putnam. I'm not ready to say too much about this novel at this point, but I can talk about the main character. Following Jenny's example I'll give you some basics about her. I'd be curious about any reactions you might have, and more important: are there any questions you would add to this list?

Finally: changes are always possible, and almost inevitable as the story and the character take off on their own.

Name: Julia Darrow
Home: born and raised in Greenbriar, Georgia. Ten years in Chicago for school and work, then back to Greenbriar.
Hair: brown
Eyes: brown
Height: 5'9"
Favorite foods: eggs Benedict, chicken and gravy, roast beef, good bread with fresh butter, strong cheese, noodles of any kind, any leafy green, thick cut potato chips, chili.
Won't eat: Yoghurt, anything stew or gumbo like, soup.
Favorite things to drink: root beer, milk, juices, red wine
Favorite Music: Bach
Likes to wear: Used to present herself as a J Jill type, but since she's changed careers, she wears pajamas, or long underwear that looks like Pajamas, or some combination of the two, all day long.
What her living space is like: A three room apartment above her business. Perfectly put together bedroom, antique furniture, a quilt made by her great grandmother folded precisely over the chest at the foot of the bed. The eat in kitchen is small, ultilitarian (she rarely cooks); the front room is a testament to comfort, quirky tastes, and technology. She's got a full computer setup, a wide screen television that hangs on the wall, every other kind of geekish toy, a huge and comfortable couch and two chairs, each with a personality of its own, as well as a hugely expensive office chair. Good original art on the walls, all contemporary except for a small oil portrait of a great great grandfather in Civil War uniform.
Methods of transport: These days she walks, or stays home if it's too far to walk.
Politics: Used to be very involved, now won't watch the news.
Magazine subscriptions: dozens. Business related, but also high end crafts, arts, antiques.
Favorite Book: Happy all the Time, Laurie Colwin; Keeper of the House, Rebecca Godwin
Favorite TV Show: She watches everything except sports, news, politics, and sitcoms with laugh tracks. Used to like medical dramas but doesn't watch those anymore either. Tends to turn on HBO and let it run.
Favorite Movie of the last few years: Man on Fire
Expression: don't just sit there
Movie star crush: As in, I"ll go see anything with . . .: Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington.
Pets: a large cage with five pairs of love birds, another larger cage with ten pairs, a small dog called Lucy, breed a mystery, a pound rescue.
Creative outlet: the display window of her shop
Favorite Muppet: Oscar the Grouch
Favorite ice cream: Tin Roof Sundae
Favorite desert: can't pick just one. She's got a sweet tooth.
The thing she'd never do: Miss opening the shop on time, be late for an appointment, stop running.
The thing she's always wanted to do: Make everybody's bed.
Childhood toy that's still in her room: an antique doll with a bisque face that is perfectly dressed, and that she never played with.

Posted by at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

It occurs to me that y'all might find this email I wrote to my editor of interest. I wrote it today. This is my new editor at Bantam, as you'll guess from the opening.

As we are working together for the first time I should tell you how I usually handle this stage.

I don't look at the manuscript for three or four days. Then I look at it and panic. Then I make myself wait another day and look again and this time I find it's mostly okay, with a lot of little infelicities. I have the urge to send you a revised version but I hold off because this is stuff you'll figure out for yourself and can wait until the next stage, and anyway, you won't want to print it out again for this kind of minor thing. And if I give into the urge as soon as I send it off to you I'll find another five little things -- typos, word changes -- and thus will be caught up in the post-novel cycle that will drive you and me both nuts.

So in short: lots of little problems, I know. I'm ready to take all that on, as well as any larger issues you identify, when you get to that point.

If you have ever had a baby, you may remember the twenty four hours after the birth, when you were torn between examining every soft, fragrant fold and at the same time, terrified. When visitors come by you are tense. Will they trot out the usual empty compliments?

oh look, how adorable. how wonderful. how pretty, what a head of hair!

Or will they go to the other, more truthful extreme

gosh newborns are ugly. why is her/his head so lopsided? don't worry, he'll get some hair sooner or later. she looks just like you.

For me that's how it works at this stage, alternating between absolute delight and terror. However. Today I allowed myself to read about five chapters, two from the middle and the last three, and I'm feeling pretty content with the story, with the flow of things and the resolutions. I hope y'all will like it too.

Oh and, it's almost two in the morning. Books get finished eventually, but insomnia seems to be eternal.

Posted by at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)