Monday, November 27, 2006

Donnacona's Oki

For those dedicated few who visit my blog (and you are a select band, I feel sure), apologies again. The race to the finish line of the third YA novel, distracted by having to do the page proofs on the second, the record snowfall, the sprouting child, all all conspire against me. I will improve, honest. If I can just get past these next two weeks…

Always great to return to a nearly complete novel. Reminds me that my present struggle is just a stage in the process. ‘Vendetta’ is sequel to ‘The Fetch’ and is now at that stage where I can merely look for misprunts… but also its my last chance to bait a hook for the one I am finishing now. It is the problem with series writing, if there is a gap between books, or if you hop around in time as I do in my Jack Absolute series. Vital things that you wish you’d put in, missing.

Mostly, I’ve caught them. A memorable one…

April 2002. I was staying at Hawthornden Castle, near Edinburgh, a writer’s retreat for a month. Me, loose in a medieval castle? It was, well, bliss. Anyway, I’d started running again, after a year’s lay off for injury. Was running down an abandoned railway track when a deer leapt across my path, vaulted a hedge, vanished. And I thought of my second ever novel, Blood Ties, where the tribe I dealt with were the Tahontaenrat, or People of the White Tail Deer. The book was going to the printers that week. And I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to deal with a very important piece of power, a strangely shaped stone given to the young native hero by his Uncle – Donnacona’s Oki. So I ran faster, back to my room in the attic in the relatively modern part of the castle (1632), attached my cell phone to my computer (feeling very 21st Century!) and send off a rewrite to the publishers, begging them to put it in.

They did. I may never write the book. But if I do, Donnacona’s oki must be in it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Rachel said...

See, I have been pondering sending a couple of applications British Columbia-way because there are some good publishing programmes there. However, I was hesitant because of the supposed lack of snow ( Winter is my favourite season ), but, the recent snow may just have changed my mind.


" Page proofs?" Oooo! That sounds so "writer-ish"; it makes me want to go out and write something.


I am sure you have thousands of readers on this blog. They are just too dazzled to form comprehensive sentences by posting comments.

3:41 PM  

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