International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Day

[pameladean]

I salute it, and all of you. Such an outpouring would last the careful person until the next holiday.

I was going to put up "This Fair Gift," a story published in 1996 and long difficult to find. But it's actually not on my computer. I'm annoyed but perhaps not altogether surprised. It was a pretty weird story.

I write so slowly and so little, and had such a long dry spell, that I haven't got anything else that's finished. There's the Liavek novel, which I do plan to finish, but it seems unkind to post a single chapter. There's the unfinished book that was supposed to be composed of three linked novellas: "Flowers of the Forest," since revised, called "Owlswater," and published in one of the Xanadu collections; "Winter and Rough Weather," which began to turn into a book all by itself, and one that I was at that time incapable of writing; and "These Bright Chains," which I've actually forgotten the entire plot of. Posting bits of that seemed wrong too.

Though perhaps not much more so than musing about them.

Pamela

Comments

[jenett]

I treasure my copy of the anthology "This Fair Gift" is in, because I am immensely fond of it.

Just saying, so you know it's appreciated. (It is a deeply weird story. But I like that in my reading.)

[pameladean]

Thank you. I'm awfully fond of it myself. I don't usually write about clothes.

P.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

*hugs you fiercely, if you will have it so*

[pameladean]

*hugs back*

Those are some dynamite poems you put up, and I say that advisedly.

P.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear. I got all frubbly putting up the one for you.

[fishbliss.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Liavek novel.
How about finishing it so we can buy it on next year's technopeasant day?

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Er, if it were finished now (and it isn't) we still wouldn't be able to buy it on this day next year. Book publishing goes much more slowly than that.

For myself, while I would enjoy reading a Liavek novel, I'm looking forward to Going North much more.

[pameladean]

You are fortunate, then, because Going North will certainly be finished first.

P.

[pameladean]

You sound just like David. If I wrote as fast as that, I wouldn't object, but it's not very likely.

I do mean to finish it, though. I don't think it will have taken any harm from sitting about. It was rather too ambitious for my first essay back into writing.

P.

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

You can be such a dreadful tease.

{hugs}

[pameladean]

A touch, a touch, I do confess it.

P.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Mmmm lovely tantalizing possibilities here!

(I will NOT let any Liavek book out of my house.)

[pameladean]

They do wander dreadfully, don't they? I had to get myself a second set, rather laboriously, when I began the novel, because mine had inexplicable gaps in it.

P.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, "This Fair Gift" is the only one of your stories or novels I managed to find entirely by accident in an ordinary local bookshop...

love

Catherine

[pameladean]

That is odd, though quite cheering. The anthology got jerked around by the publisher to the point that its marketing was not what one would have preferred.

P.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that's why we got it in Australia? Most of your books, we don't seem to get unless we go and harrass the specialty science fiction and fantasy bookshops. Maybe the different publisher would account for it.

Catherine

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Want I should scan and OCR "This Fair Gift"? Can't do before IPSTD's over, but could eventually, and would be happy to share a story I adore.

[pameladean]

If you would really have the time, without messing up your academic career, that would be entirely splendid.

At least two people are making it a week rather than a day of posting stuff, and in any case Raphael suggested ages ago that I make that story available, so timing is not the most important thing.

Thank you.

Pamela

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If you do I will still top-link it in my list, even though it is late.

This offer valid for you only.

(Was "These Bright Chains" about Melanie?)

[pameladean]

That would be splendid.

Yes, it was. I had it in mind when I wrote the end of Whim, but at some point it just vanished out of my head, possibly because its work was done. There will be notes somewhere, unless they are consorting with the files of "This Fair Gift."

P.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That would be great. I love it, and I keep recommending it to people, and then they are unhappy because they can't find it.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool, I had forgotten about OCR. I was going to volunteer to be one of a team of people who typed up parts of it, so that it could be assembled whole.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

If you wanted to do one of the inevitable proofreading passes, I certainly wouldn't argue. I'm working on the scan now, so we should have OCR text pretty soon.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely willing to help proofread.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

Which anthology is "This Fair Gift" in, if you don't mind my asking? I am mightily intrigued.

[pameladean]

Sisters in Fantasy 3, edited by Susan Schwartz. It was a mass-market paperback original. It's got a lot of interesting stories in it.

P.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Amazon shops currently have 1 & 2 but not 3...I will keep checking. Looking forward to it.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Actually, the book I've got here with "This Fair Gift" in it has a 2 on the cover, so you may be in business.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thank you; I'm ordering.

Claps hands...

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Oh boy a Liavek novel!

Re: Claps hands...

[pameladean]

Yeah, that's kind of how I felt when it loomed up out of the blue. But it has to wait its turn. It's been turned down by one publisher, and my agent thinks it should sit around and season itself a little.

P.

Re: Claps hands...

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Ah a seasoned book...
I think the 3 Liavek novels I have are seasoned (aged that is).
I realized after Mike was gone that I didn't have them all, so I keep meaning to do something about that.
I do miss him (as I know you do too).
We must correspond again sometime, and if you ever feel the urge to come to Louisville, KY. (or Cincinnati or Indianapolis which are somewhat close) please let me know.