The good news is, somebody opened up a discussion forum about Diana Wynne Jones!
The bad news is, practically no one has posted on it yet. But that can be changed.
And no, I wasn't the first one on it. I was the third. At the moment I'm the last poster in all the open discussion threads, but I didn't start them all, so that's totally coincidental and anyway you could change that.
Showing posts with label DWJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DWJ. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Spreading the joyous news, and an observation
First of all, the really important thing: We're getting one more Diana Wynne Jones book after all! She wasn't finished and hadn't left any notes but there was enough of it that her sister gave it a shot. And then apparently started channeling her or something; we'll see.
Excuse me while I jump up and down some more.
Okay, I'm back. And I have sent out another query today.
I could probably get more queries out there if I didn't stress over each and every one, changing the pitch and the synopsis and the query and the everything every single time, so that the process at minimum takes two days.
But the thing is, the synopsis and the pitch get better, very gradually, over time.
As I move on to agents that are more and more long shots...
Life is rough, so let's not think about that. Let's think about getting a new Diana Wynne Jones book in 2014!!!
Excuse me while I jump up and down some more.
Okay, I'm back. And I have sent out another query today.
I could probably get more queries out there if I didn't stress over each and every one, changing the pitch and the synopsis and the query and the everything every single time, so that the process at minimum takes two days.
But the thing is, the synopsis and the pitch get better, very gradually, over time.
As I move on to agents that are more and more long shots...
Life is rough, so let's not think about that. Let's think about getting a new Diana Wynne Jones book in 2014!!!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Did you know...
...that Diana Wynne Jones is readable even through a migraine?
Granted, by migraine standards mine are so mild that I've resisted for years the idea that I had them; but nope, that definitely was one. I read Hexwood and The Ogre Downstairs. I'm not sure what possessed me to even try to read Hexwood under the circumstances - you'd think that complicated structure would play holy hell with a migraine-fuddled brain, but it didn't. And Gwinny's attempt to murder the Ogre is still laugh-out-loud funny even when you're too sick to laugh.
I get more in awe of that woman all the time.
Granted, by migraine standards mine are so mild that I've resisted for years the idea that I had them; but nope, that definitely was one. I read Hexwood and The Ogre Downstairs. I'm not sure what possessed me to even try to read Hexwood under the circumstances - you'd think that complicated structure would play holy hell with a migraine-fuddled brain, but it didn't. And Gwinny's attempt to murder the Ogre is still laugh-out-loud funny even when you're too sick to laugh.
I get more in awe of that woman all the time.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Happy Birthday, Ms. Jones! + Miscellaneous
Today is Diana Wynne Jones's birthday. I suggest you celebrate by reading - Archer's Goon, say. Or Drowned Ammet, which does some things in the plot and character interrelations that'd make Dickens gasp in admiration for the way she makes none of it feel at all contrived.
Speaking of birthdays - the older I get, the less I want to pick up the phone. This bugs me. For instance, since our Paypal and Amazon accounts were set up by Damon, I need to protect us from confusion and potential legal and financial difficulties by getting a separate e-mail account to anchor my business use of those companies. The simplest thing to do is pick up the phone and ask our internet provider what the easiest way to do that is. But I keep putting it off.
And, a house-repair mystery: In the mud and powder rooms downstairs, we have developed two sets of absolutely straight, parallel seams of paint bubbling. It looks like a bad tape and float job along the borders of a drywall panel. But when the workman took the paint off, he revealed no tape and no abutting panels, but an amazingly straight and consistent crack in the drywall. He suggested that the crack and the paint bubbling were due to a leak; but the plumber finds no trace of such a thing.
So what the heck have the Borrowers been doing in my walls to create this effect?
I have concluded that real life exists to keep us from being too productive.
Speaking of birthdays - the older I get, the less I want to pick up the phone. This bugs me. For instance, since our Paypal and Amazon accounts were set up by Damon, I need to protect us from confusion and potential legal and financial difficulties by getting a separate e-mail account to anchor my business use of those companies. The simplest thing to do is pick up the phone and ask our internet provider what the easiest way to do that is. But I keep putting it off.
And, a house-repair mystery: In the mud and powder rooms downstairs, we have developed two sets of absolutely straight, parallel seams of paint bubbling. It looks like a bad tape and float job along the borders of a drywall panel. But when the workman took the paint off, he revealed no tape and no abutting panels, but an amazingly straight and consistent crack in the drywall. He suggested that the crack and the paint bubbling were due to a leak; but the plumber finds no trace of such a thing.
So what the heck have the Borrowers been doing in my walls to create this effect?
I have concluded that real life exists to keep us from being too productive.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Idea Garage Sale: Tribute
Several years ago, I had an idea for a story, and my first thought about it was: "That's a Diana Wynne Jones idea. She should write it."
But she didn't have the idea, I did. So I did my best. I played with it, and plotted it, and wrote on it, and stopped on it, and had a Year from Hell, and recovered, and reread it, and at some point it stopped being the "Diana Wynne Jones book" in my head, and became my book. Once that happened, I was finally able to revise it to the point that Damon could vet the magic system for me. Then I revised it some more and started it on the thankless round of rejection it's been on since. It is a good book, which is no guarantee of publication, and a book with a similar premise recently appeared on the Publisher's Marketplace deal list, which doesn't affect the core fact that I did in fact write it and it is in fact good.
Not as good as if Diana Wynne Jones had written it. But of what is that not true?
One of the things about books is, that when we read them, we have ideas. This is true regardless of the quality of the book. Agatha Christie set out to prove she could write a better mystery than somebody else, and it turned out she could. "Ellery Queen" was invented because his components hated Philo Vance. People discover their own ideas lurking in fairy stories all the time. How many domestic novels have their roots in Little Women? How many campaign maps for how many gaming worlds are the direct offspring of The Lord of the Rings?
I used to scorn this sort of thing as "copying," but I still did it. So do you. So, if I'm to believe Fire and Hemlock, did Diana Wynne Jones. If you copy well enough, it stops being imitation and becomes influence. Inspiration. You write your way out the other side and become yourself.
Do it well. Do it poorly. Do it till you own it.
But she didn't have the idea, I did. So I did my best. I played with it, and plotted it, and wrote on it, and stopped on it, and had a Year from Hell, and recovered, and reread it, and at some point it stopped being the "Diana Wynne Jones book" in my head, and became my book. Once that happened, I was finally able to revise it to the point that Damon could vet the magic system for me. Then I revised it some more and started it on the thankless round of rejection it's been on since. It is a good book, which is no guarantee of publication, and a book with a similar premise recently appeared on the Publisher's Marketplace deal list, which doesn't affect the core fact that I did in fact write it and it is in fact good.
Not as good as if Diana Wynne Jones had written it. But of what is that not true?
One of the things about books is, that when we read them, we have ideas. This is true regardless of the quality of the book. Agatha Christie set out to prove she could write a better mystery than somebody else, and it turned out she could. "Ellery Queen" was invented because his components hated Philo Vance. People discover their own ideas lurking in fairy stories all the time. How many domestic novels have their roots in Little Women? How many campaign maps for how many gaming worlds are the direct offspring of The Lord of the Rings?
I used to scorn this sort of thing as "copying," but I still did it. So do you. So, if I'm to believe Fire and Hemlock, did Diana Wynne Jones. If you copy well enough, it stops being imitation and becomes influence. Inspiration. You write your way out the other side and become yourself.
Do it well. Do it poorly. Do it till you own it.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
News: Diana Wynne Jones :(
Diana Wynne Jones died today.
I've been telling people for years that she's the greatest living children's writer in the English language and, therefore, the greatest living writer in the English language.
I can't say that anymore.
Now I'm depressed.
I've been telling people for years that she's the greatest living children's writer in the English language and, therefore, the greatest living writer in the English language.
I can't say that anymore.
Now I'm depressed.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
IT CAME IN THE MAIL!!!!!
I got another Fortean Times, which is nice but - remember how I don't order from Amazon when I can get it from the Red Balloon?
Well not if it's Amazon UK and what I get is DIANA WYNNE JONES's new book which may not be available in the US for a year or more. Loyalty is great but this is Diana Wynne Jones. They'll understand.
I first started reading the great DWJ with Charmed Life, which I bought used for a buck ninety-eight while noodling around a genre store in Atlanta as my husband went meticulously through the comic boxes filling gaps in his Thor collection. It was pretty good. So I looked under Jones next time I went to the library, and there she was. I gave her the one-book-per-visit treatment, picking the books that sounded most interesting first, and then I was down to Dogsbody, which sounded pretty lame. The dog star Sirius incarnates as a dog to retrieve a magical dohickey, yeah, there's an upper limit to how good that can be.
Except there isn't when Diana Wynne Jones writes it.
After that, I didn't bother reading the jacket copy. I just picked her up and started reading her in the line at checkout. This one's called Enchanted Glass.
Excuse me, I think I've wasted enough time blogging now. "When Jocelyn Brandon died -- at a great old age, as magicians tend to do -- he left his house and his field-of-care to his grandson, Andrew Brandon Hope..."
Well not if it's Amazon UK and what I get is DIANA WYNNE JONES's new book which may not be available in the US for a year or more. Loyalty is great but this is Diana Wynne Jones. They'll understand.
I first started reading the great DWJ with Charmed Life, which I bought used for a buck ninety-eight while noodling around a genre store in Atlanta as my husband went meticulously through the comic boxes filling gaps in his Thor collection. It was pretty good. So I looked under Jones next time I went to the library, and there she was. I gave her the one-book-per-visit treatment, picking the books that sounded most interesting first, and then I was down to Dogsbody, which sounded pretty lame. The dog star Sirius incarnates as a dog to retrieve a magical dohickey, yeah, there's an upper limit to how good that can be.
Except there isn't when Diana Wynne Jones writes it.
After that, I didn't bother reading the jacket copy. I just picked her up and started reading her in the line at checkout. This one's called Enchanted Glass.
Excuse me, I think I've wasted enough time blogging now. "When Jocelyn Brandon died -- at a great old age, as magicians tend to do -- he left his house and his field-of-care to his grandson, Andrew Brandon Hope..."
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