Thank you, Peg

[pameladean]

My astonished thanks to Peg Kerr for making me these icons. They are all from my book covers, and please me inordinately.

In other news, well, um. I took Aristophanes (my cat) out on his leash yesterday, and he flushed a large rabbit out of the garden. No animals were harmed in the making of this moment.

Today I took him out again, but there were only squirrels, all rambunctionating around and yelling their heads off.

HCMC called to remind me of my Monday appointment, and also to interrogate me about my finances. I am hoping this means they will not do so again right before I am due to have my blood pressure taken. I was certainly agitated enough right after.

The book is stuck, possibly because Papersky's lent writing energy is coming by the slow train, more likely because I am confounded by architecture.

Pamela

Comments

[kiya]

I'm terribly amused by the fact that my immediate response to that icon was, "Ooh! Ooh! I have that one!"

[lcohen]

my reaction was similar "i know which one that one's from!"

but yes, i have it--read it on my boston trip, actually.

[pameladean]

*giggle* Recognition is important. Aristotle says so.

Pamela

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Lovely icon. I look forward to seeing the rest. What cover is that one taken from? It's not anything I recognize, but then my copies of your books are all rather antique by now, and I imagine there's been some reissues along the way.

This is Rebecca, by-the-bye. Still not published, but then now is probably not a good time to try and find an agent or a publisher given that I've only got the one finished manuscript -- Knife, that is -- and all my other novels-in-progress are a) nowhere near completion and b) all in inconveniently different genres. Plus, I've discovered that having two kids under the age of three tends to make serious writing and research very difficult, if not impossible... and I really doubt any agent or publisher is going to get excited over a writer who honestly can't tell when or whether she'll write another book.

Anyway, that was a long and blathering way of saying hello, but I'm sure you know to expect that from me. :)

[pameladean]

It's a bit from JUNIPER, GENTIAN, AND ROSEMARY. I love that cover.

There have actually not been any reissues, unless you count Tor's putting a different cover on the paperback of THE DUBIOUS HILLS, possibly as a result of one too many people's saying, "Hey, that looks just like the cover of de Lint's THE LITTLE COUNTRY!" about the hardcover.

I spent five years not knowing if I would ever write another book, and Tor still asked regularly, and appears inclined to buy the new one. It is certainly not any publisher's favorite position to be in, and may not be the best way to start out.

By the time the book gets through the slushpile, the kids will be older anyway. Possibly by several years.

(Nice to see you!)

Pamela

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Drat you, Pamela, stop taking away my perfectly good excuses to sit on KNIFE like a broody hen for another ten years or so. :)

Seriously, I was going to try and get the attention of an agent, since it seemed that a lot of the publishers I was interested in don't accept unagented submissions anyway. But then I thought that if I did get an agent's attention they would naturally want to know whether I had more manuscripts lined up, and then when they heard that I had no idea when the next book would get written, they wouldn't want to take me on.

As for playing the slushpile waiting game, it would probably be a good bet if I were sure I was finished having kids, but I'm not sure about that yet -- so although I might indeed be in a better position to write two or three or four years from now, I could just as well be in an equally bad or worse one. Sigh.

And nice to see you, too!

[pameladean]

I don't really know much about the thinking of agents or editors at the moment, except for my own, but if it's only postage -- if you are out of angst in this area -- you haven't got much to lose. Agents and editors are both painfully aware that things change, that the next book in progress may never show up, that somebody who swore never to write again will do so -- that writers are fruitbats. I'm not sure how much it matters if they like the manuscript of the book they are holding.

Pamela

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Fruitbats! Hee! I like that.

Seriously, thanks for the encouragement. I'll have a look at those agent listings again, then.

Hmm . . .

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like them . . . but I don't see the icons at all when I look at your journal entry on my friends page. Or when I go to your journal directly. Should I whack my computer? Or did you take them down again???

Curious,
P.

Re: Hmm . . .

[pameladean]

When I decided on the final three I forgot to designate one as the default. If you look again something should be there.

P.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you for "rambunctionating". It's the perfect word for the thing the small children of members of my programming team do. [ Little plastic dinosaurs and non-toxic felt-tip pens and paper pads, I think, for the 3-year-old and the 4-year-old, but I'm a bit stuck yet for what one gets a 21-month-old kid who seems to have spent most of the last couple of months being mildly ill. ]

[pameladean]

*beam* Lydy would say that it is not a word.

As for the younger kid, chewable books with good pictures?

Pamela