Writing aspirations/dreams

I’m pretty sure he’ll continue the way he always intended it — the TV show has a lifeblood of its own now, and can almost exist separately from the book canon. Whether he will actually finish it, well...that’s another discussion. (Personally, I get the feeling he’s done with it and has handed it off to HBO to finish. But I guess I could be proven wrong).

Maybe that opens another debate - would you be happy letting someone else tell your story if you no long wanted to finish it?
 
Another searching question. I think it would depend on whether the person/people to whom it's handed off respected the story, first and foremost. And a lot of posters to this thread seem to have a (justifiably) parental attachment to their characters; you wouldn't want to see anyone dress them up in silly costumes and put them on a stage, that the gawking masses might throw peanuts at them.
 
I’m pretty sure he’ll continue the way he always intended it — the TV show has a lifeblood of its own now, and can almost exist separately from the book canon. Whether he will actually finish it, well...that’s another discussion. (Personally, I get the feeling he’s done with it and has handed it off to HBO to finish. But I guess I could be proven wrong).

Maybe that opens another debate - would you be happy letting someone else tell your story if you no long wanted to finish it?
Like others have said (plus the interesting article @Scarfy posted), surely he's bound to be influenced by the TV series to an extent (if he does continue his next book)?

As for your question about someone finishing a story I didn't want to finish, I guess it would depend on how I felt about the story and characters at the time. If I cared for it, I think it would have to be someone I trusted to do a good job.
 
I wish I knew.

Fanfic still features in there somewhere.

About a month ago, I figured out why, and I was reminded of it today by a line in @Jo Zebedee 's blog about a reader/reviewer describing her work better than she had. So I thought I'd stick it here to see if anyone agrees.

Much as I've loved the reviews and feedback I've had for my two published books, they haven't given me quite the sense of fulfillment I thought they would beforehand, except where they show a different perspective from my own. I think what I was always wanting, without realising it, is for my own relationship with the characters and story to be enhanced, to share at a fundamental level in another's experience of them. I get something like that with my online writing group, who are good at jotting down reactions to events in the story, even if they're not "critique" comments as such (something I'm going to try harder to do myself), but reviews, lovely though they (mostly) are, don't tell me anything new about the story/characters -- they don't increase the depth of life they have. A book comes alive in each reader's reading of it, but only for that reader -- it's very hard to actually share it in a meaningful way. But fanfic, for all its faults, would be one way for that to happen, to really experience the characters becoming more alive through someone else's interpretation.

Hope at least some of that ramble made sense.
 
That’s an interesting one. I liked how Jack described Kare as a freedom fighter rather than the term ‘rebel’ I’ve always used. I think it’s closer to the core of the book and the existentialist nature of Kare - whereas Ealyn was, undoubtedly, a rebel. It will help me when I get around to the prequel I think in framing what is different between them. The other thing in the review that struck me was the identification that the conflict was between characters. That gives me a broad theme to hang my work on.

So, yes - this review was different from most. But I do find the reviewers who are most thoughtful - Allen Stroud comes to mind too - can be very good at getting to the core.

Interestingly both Jack Fennell and Allen have PHDs with thesis focusing on sf (Jack’s was about Irish sf and Allen’s about workdbuilding), so perhaps it is also to do with that extra layer of critical thinking?
 
A book comes alive in each reader's reading of it, but only for that reader -- it's very hard to actually share it in a meaningful way.

You need someone to live-tweet their reading process... ;)

I actually had the opportunity to follow someone reading Heart Blade 'live' — a friend was visiting and she decided to read the book while she was at my house. I was working on book 2 at the time, so I'd be sitting quietly at the table typing and I'd hear her laugh in the other room, or she'd come up and say she loved a certain bit, etc. It was fascinating!!
 
I actually had the opportunity to follow someone reading Heart Blade 'live' — a friend was visiting and she decided to read the book while she was at my house. I was working on book 2 at the time, so I'd be sitting quietly at the table typing and I'd hear her laugh in the other room, or she'd come up and say she loved a certain bit, etc. It was fascinating!!

My first CP was a friend to whom I gave printed pages when I went round his flat, and he read them in front of me, while I watched his face and tried to decode every nuance of expression. I think "terrifying" would be a more accurate word.
 
At the moment, the aim is to feel that writing and self-publishing the new book have been "worth it". What exactly this means, I'm not sure. I do know that it means that I don't want to end up feeling that it's just disappeared into the ether and essentially died. I'd like it - and the sequel - to become as much a part of what I've done as any of the other books. And of course I'd like to make some money off it. But beyond that, it's hard to say. I think I know what failure is - hopefully I'll recognise success when I see it!
 
At the moment, the aim is to feel that writing and self-publishing the new book have been "worth it". What exactly this means, I'm not sure. I do know that it means that I don't want to end up feeling that it's just disappeared into the ether and essentially died. I'd like it - and the sequel - to become as much a part of what I've done as any of the other books. And of course I'd like to make some money off it. But beyond that, it's hard to say. I think I know what failure is - hopefully I'll recognise success when I see it!

Well, that's a nice reassuring post from one of probably the three most successful authors here...
 
Well, that's a nice reassuring post from one of probably the three most successful authors here...

Sorry - it's not meant to sound depressing, more to reflect that I don't exactly know what to expect here, and that the range of good possibilities is so wide that it's hard to pin down what where to say "Job done". Normally, I have a pretty clear idea of what will happen, especially because all but one of the books I've written have been in fairly limited genres (comedy, sort-of-steampunk, British humour). But here, none of those limiting factors are present. I honestly have no very clear idea of what to expect, because so many of the usual variables aren't there. So I suppose you could say that the sky's the limit!
 
Sorry - it's not meant to sound depressing, more to reflect that I don't exactly know what to expect here, and that the range of good possibilities is so wide that it's hard to pin down what where to say "Job done". Normally, I have a pretty clear idea of what will happen, especially because all but one of the books I've written have been in limited genres (comedy, sort-of-steampunk, British humour). But here, none of those limiting factors are there. I honestly have no very clear idea of what to expect, because so many of the usual variables aren't there. So I suppose you could say that the sky's the limit!

Ah, I thought you were talking more widely about success and failure, not just this particular book - my bad.
 
Not only a best-of, but a best-of-all-time!

I have a new aspiration. Since becoming a regular listener of BBC 4's Desert Island Discs (past and present episodes), I'd like to be well known enough to participate! That's the only reason I think it'd be good to be famous.

For a more realistic and short-term aspiration, I'm aiming to sell a short story, which I've been working hard at for the past year.
 

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