Cormorant Child

[truepenny]

Long long ago in a galaxy far far away . . .

Sorry, wrong script.

About six years ago, immediately after I (a.) got an agent and (b.) quit teaching, I wrote a novel in six weeks. It was like an erupting geyser, and I didn't need to be particularly self-aware to see the connection. I wrote it, did two revisions, gave it to my agent.

I loved this novel. I hugged it and squeezed it and called it George.

My agent was underwhelmed.

So was my editor, when I eventually had an editor.

So was my writing partner, the ever lovely and talented Bear.

I had plenty of other things to work on, so I said, Fuck you all very much, (not those words, of course, and really not even that sentiment, but Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in little less 'n half an hour, so I'm summing up, not explaining, capische?) and shoved it into a mental box (which I just mistyped as "block"--not necessarily wrong, either) and ignored it like a cat.

Periodically, over the last couple years, a thought has surfaced in regard to that story--thematic things I could have done and didn't, ways to Occam's Razor some of the excessive curlicues in the backstory--and I made note of them and put them in the box, too.

And then, night before last, while my brain was running round and round like a sugar-buzzed squirrel on an exercise wheel, it flung an opening line at me.

With a shriek of protesting metal, the hatch opened, and Mule fell out of the palace-ship into the long grass of the Edrin Valley. He was trying to run before he made it to his feet.

And all day yesterday it nagged at me, so after I got my 750 words on Summerdown, I went back to work on this novel I haven't touched since 2002.

1313 words, and a new title: Cormorant Child.

Now, I don't know if this is going to last. I don't know if this version of the novel is going to be any better than the last version of the novel. But I'm in love with it again.

And I'm in love with Summerdown, too.

A shining moment of novelistic polyamory. I don't expect it to last, but I'm really liking the heck out of it while it's here.

Comments

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

Some books require aging. I've got one just like that, though it is incomplete because of curlicues and such. Good luck. :-)

[puzzlehouse.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me -- and I love the title.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

So you've applied the vintage port technique to this thing? Just park it down there in the wine cellar and let nature take its course. Do not shake the bottle up, as that disturns the sediment...

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Oh, and this bronze figurine of a shrewmouse



represents the blind, vulnerable Horus, according to this (http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/art/lpbronze.html).

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

Yay! Go, you!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That's terrific. I hope it goes really well.

[blackaire.livejournal.com]

We're all authorial Mormons. Best of luck with the new version. I too am partial to the title.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Have fun!!!

Every once in a while, you have to.

[strigine.livejournal.com]

That is very cool. Also gives me hope that someday I will be writer enough to find the pearl in a couple of cherished early projects.

[pameladean]

What a lovely place to be in. I can only do primary-secondary polyamory with fiction -- a novel and a short story, but not two novels. What bliss.

P.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely title.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

shining moment of novelistic polyamory

Best line of the day award goes to you. :) And I really like the name "Cormorant Child" too.

[gardensoil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, give us your books, you know you want to! Where's my reading chair?

[riverlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, what fun!

I'm really enjoying reading your journal, by the way (says she, the lurker). Hearing bits and pieces of your writing life like this is fascinating.