Friday, June 6, 2014

The Good Ship Imagination

6th June 2014

After waxing lyrical about spring these last two blogs, I should get back to the business end of my job here.  As far as my writing career goes, we seem to be in a holding pattern, waiting in the clouds for landing permission. When that comes is somewhat out of my control for the time being, so in order to save myself from the insanity of uncertainty, I spent the last couple of weeks polishing the story I wrote about a wild mustang, called simply "Mustang." It's not a kids' story, really, more a story that any member of the family will enjoy, one to make you cry and then smile. It has a bittersweet ending, let's say, much as does my book Veil Of Time (according to a new review of my book out by the Scottish historical novel society last week). I guess bittersweet is a hue that appeals to me. Sugary is not. My agent wanted to see my rewrite, so it is with him now. It is out of my hands. So much of this publishing/writing gig seems to be. I write the tunes and someone else sings them, so you just have to hope they have a good voice and delivery. The metaphor doesn't exactly work, but you know what I mean.
I expect that the scenario for JK Rowling or Dan Brown is quite different - for them, nothing is out of their hands. At their juncture, they are calling all the shots and could have their baby picture in the bath as a front cover if they wanted. I do look forward to this day myself, may it come, that I am the one doling out emails while others wait with bated breath instead of waiting as I am now like a maniac for crumbs from the master's table. I just shouldn't do that - that much I have control over, not to be a maniac, and I am getting better at it - hence the finished work on the horse story. Next up is the rewrite of the sequel to Veil Of Time, which I just started and am ten pages in. I got this rush of "Oh, this is why I write..." and it felt very good. Much better than waiting for crumbs.


I love this picture of rewriting, and I do apologise to whomever drew it for not knowing who you are. But it says in one glance about the writing process what it would take  me lines and lines to describe.
As I said in my last blog, my agent, Esmond The Gallant, was in Scotland recently, scouting out the settings of my book and its sequel. How's that for faith in your authors? He was actually on the fort at Dunadd telling other tourists that the landscape had changed, as I describe in my book but which no historian I am aware of would agree with. This is what you call art-imitating-life-imitating art. One day I will be proven right - there are others out there conjecturing much the same, but they are not His-storians. They are simply Storians, much like myself. I like that name better than "writer." Doctors write (albeit illegibly) on your prescription chit. The pope writes his name on papal bulls (and the bulls aren't that happy about it either.) Scientists write papers.
But I write stories. I take other people with me out on the good ship Imagination and show them the northern lights of my soul. I am and will forever be a Storian, and I am in good company.

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