Monthly Archives: September 2011
The state of Drollerie Press (and Faerie Blood)
| September 23, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Drollerie Press, Faerie Blood |
This has started getting talked about in a few public places, so I’m going to go ahead and address it here. Long story short, Drollerie Press is in a slow state of collapse, pretty much due to the ongoing serious health issues our senior editor, 
serasempre
There are rumors that Drollerie may be sold, but at this time they are only rumors. I have however taken the step of asking for the return of my rights to Faerie Blood. I don’t have a confirmed date as to when this will happen, given that it (like all other outstanding things that editor Deena needs to take care of) is dependent upon her ability to get to it. But given that this is now in the queue, if you want Faerie Blood, you should go ahead and get it from the site of your choice. Drollerie’s own site is your best bet as that’s the source most likely to get me any payment for it.
Or, if you are so inclined, I have a small number of CD copies of Faerie Blood still available. If you’re local to me, you can have one for $5. If you’re not local, you can have one for $7.
What I will do with the book once I have it back remains to be seen. Much will depend upon whether Drollerie is in fact sold (in which case the possibility exists that new management may be interested in keeping it), or on whether I can find a home for it where the book hasn’t already been queried. I have received Good Advice that one way to go about that may well be to finish Book 2 and query them together. We’ll see.
Bone Walker remains the most likely means through which I could query Faerie Blood anywhere else, since that’ll wind up being a full novel. The current novella-length pieces I’m thinking about for the Warder universe (the Oscar story, the Elizabeth/Ross story, the Millicent origin story) will also have to be considered.
More on this as I know it, all.
Hiatus report
| September 10, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
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Here I am on Saturday, so I thought I’d go ahead and tell y’all about what progress I’ve made on Lament of the Dove. Short form–not as much as I would have liked. Chances are high I’m not going to be finished by tomorrow.
But, and this is the important thing: I’m really happy with what I’ve achieved. I made it into Chapter 20, only to discover that I had to rewrite pretty much 2/3rds of the entire chapter in order to accomplish one of the last remaining changes on the Carina editor’s request list: i.e., giving Faanshi a better path of development, and demonstrating to the reader that she begins to progress in getting a handle on her power.
For the last few days I’ve therefore been inching my way through rewriting Chapter 20. I’ve made substantial progress on it, and I think the result’s going to be a much more dynamic chapter overall. It’s not only aiming for the Faanshi goal I mentioned, but also to raise the stakes on her link with Kestar, as I’m trying to demonstrate that yes, it is an active danger to both of them.
This means I’m likely going to have to rewrite some of Chapter 21 as well, since that’s the next Kestar chapter, and he’ll have to react to some of this new stuff I’m writing in Chapter 20. We’ll see how far I get by tomorrow night, and if I can keep up the momentum over the next couple of weeks. I still want to get Lament squared away soon, ideally with enough time to let beta readers look over this hopefully final draft before solarbird
Wish me luck, all!
Sometimes, bigotry doesn’t pay
| September 6, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Other People's Books |
I know, I know, I’m supposed to be rigged for silent running this week. I’m waking up again to post this, because it’s important.
As y’all know I’m a member of the Outer Alliance, and the word broke today over the OA’s mailing list about a particularly noxious little adaptation of nothing less than Hamlet, by Orson Scott Card. Those of you who’ve been following this issue already, or who already know about Card’s rampant homophobia, you know where I’m going with this.
According to this review, his big shocking change to the story is that Hamlet’s father was not only gay, he was also a child molester. That he molested Horatio and Laertes and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, thereby turning all of them gay. And, as a cherry on top of the bigotry sundae, Hamlet’s dad’s ghost is looking forward to his “beautiful son” joining him in Hell.
Folks, I’m not inherently opposed to adaptations of the classics. Modern popular culture is full of excellent adaptations of many of Shakespeare’s works, and SF/F certainly has its share of them. But I’m opposed to them when they go out of their way to perpetuate lethal stereotypes about queer people. And even aside from that, if the reviewer’s description of the prose tasting like “saltines without salt” is any sign, this particular adaptation is wretched even aside from its being a hatefest.
Another member of the OA mailing list has, however, pointed out a gem of hope and light here: i.e., that the small print run of this novella has not in fact sold out, indicating that not too many have elected to throw their money at it. Ditto for how the previous Tor release in which Card’s work appeared isn’t selling too well either on Amazon.
So to all of you who never knew about this work, I’m a bit sorry to have brought it to your attention, and can only hope you will continue to not only not buy it, but will specifically not buy it because bigotry is not okay. To those of you who already knew about it and elected not to buy it on that basis, I thank you.
To counter its existence, I’d like to commend to your attention the Lethe Press anthology Time Well Bent, in which catherineldf
And now I’m going back on silent running, because I need to finish my edits. But while I’m gone, I invite y’all to share with me in the comments any queer-positive adaptations of classic stories, of any genre!
One last thing before I rig for silent running
| September 2, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
I will need beta readers for this hopefully last draft before I fling it back to Carina. The plan will be to finish the six chapters left that I need to do, let it simmer for a couple of weeks (and be beta read, ideally), then make one more read-through myself before I send it off.
Which means, assuming that I finish the edits in the next few days, I’m going to need people who think they can commit to reading the manuscript some time in the next two weeks.
If you’ve already read Lament before and are up for taking another crack at it, what I would need from you is to sanity check the changes I’ve made in response to the letter I had from Carina, and make sure the story still holds together.
If you haven’t read Lament before, pretty much the same–just read through the book like you would any other book, and tell me if you think it holds together well.
I would not, repeat, NOT require an in-depth proofread. I’ve already edited the hell out of this text, mostly to whittle down my propensity for verbosity, and I’m to the point of not wanting to whittle it any further because just about every word left in here is a word I very specifically want there. However, any glaringly obvious typos, missing words, or words I clearly should have used in place of words that are actually there should definitely be pointed out.
Most of all though I would need a commitment to step up and do this in the rough two weeks or so after I finish the edit pass. I really want to get this done and dealt with, and once the edits are finished, I don’t want to let the manuscript sit too long before I send it back to Carina. I’ve screwed around long enough. I want this done.
So! Four of you have already expressed interest (many thanks to technoshamangerimaple
And watch this space for when I announce being done.
Off to edit, people! Kestar, Julian, Faanshi? Let’s do this thing.
Six chapters left
| September 1, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
Tonight, hoping to get a head start on the Great Editpalooza next week, I did some poking at the rest of Chapter 18 of Lament of the Dove. I am pleased to report that I have actually finished the edits on that chapter, as of this post!
This means I have six, count ‘em, six chapters left to do and a nine-day vacation to do them in. I can do this thing. I WILL do this thing. And if I finish before the nine days are up, I’ll shift immediate gears into resuming throwing words at Bone Walker or whatever else will take them; the Internet hiatus will still be in effect.
So get your Anna in while supplies last, people! I will not be monitoring any of the social networks at all next week, and I cannot guarantee I’ll pay attention to journal or blog comments either. I will however keep an eye on regular email.
And for the curious, Lament is currently clocking in around 107K, which is about 3,500 words added back in as of this draft–most of which have come in with the entirely new scene I’ve written to replace the beginning of Chapter 18. This is still well within the range of word count limits Carina Press’s editor asked for. It’ll be interesting to see if any further substantial word count changes occur.
Wish me luck, folks.
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