21-Jan-2006
(Late) January Newsletter from the desk of Karen Brichoux
Contents:
*News
*Article: Tracking the Wild Novel
*What I’m Reading
News:
*Yeah, yeah...this newsletter is l.a.t.e. Insert loads of whining here about how I’ve been busy, buried under holiday-backup, and then there was the little matter of getting the proposal for the next book finished. I will add that when I’m writing, everything else (including food and sleep) takes a back seat. Okay, whining finished.
*If you would like to be added to my snail-mail mailing list to receive a postcard informing you of upcoming releases (this amounts to one postcard a year and is the only thing I will send you), send me your mailing address at email@karenbrichoux.com Please put “mailing list” in the subject line. The amount of spam lately is making it difficult to figure out what is legitimate e-mail (this goes for all e-mail). I try to always respond when I receive an e-mail (even if it takes a few days), so if you don’t get a reply, I probably didn’t get your e-mail.
*Article: Tracking the Wild Novel: Lovesick
Do you know the cliche about lovesick people? The cliche about how they stare off into space and don’t notice what they’re doing? Naughty children feed them caterpillars and delight in watching the lovesick person eat the fuzzy creature without even noticing? I’m at that point with my draft. My agent could call me and say “We just made an unbelievable foreign deal! We’re gonna make out like bandits!” and I would reply “That’s nice. You wouldn’t believe how this scene I was working on today just took off and gave me this idea to...”
I’m actually not exaggerating. Later, after what the agent said finally sank in, I would celebrate my good fortune, but when I’m writing, the only real world is the world in the book.
This is actually a good thing. The life of the author is a long series of hurry-up-and-waits--enough hurry-up-and-waits that a saint would do something unsaintly--and every waiting period tries my patience and sends me over the edge. Unless I’m writing. So the key to my sanity--if you can call my mental state sane--is to immerse myself in writing as much as I can.
So here’s to the world of the imagination. Long may it live.
Best,
Karen
*What I’m Reading:
RABBIT HILL by Robert Lawson
DREAM DAYS by Kenneth Grahame
THE SINGING AND DANCING DAUGHTERS OF GOD by Timothy Schaffert
