by Sandra Gulland | Nov 15, 2013 | Adventures of a Writing Life |
I’m so pleased. I’ve just printed out the contract for Romanian rights to THE SHADOW QUEEN. I’ll sign and send them off today.
Romania is a country I’ve not yet been published in. Here’s the list so far:
Canada (two publishers: both English and Quebec French editions)
US
UK
Germany
France
Italy
Spain (two publishers: both Spanish and Catalan editions)
Portugal
Denmark
The Czech Republic
Serbia
Hungary
Israel
Russia
Turkey
Poland
Romania
When I started writing decades ago, I assumed I would never be published, so this does make me smile.
by Sandra Gulland | Nov 4, 2013 | Adventures of a Writing Life |
My apologies to the subscribers to this blog for the mysterious “sss” “sss” “sss” blog post you were sent recently.
I make most of the changes to my website myself, and in this case I rather messed up!
But some things have changed, and for the better. Note that now “Blogs” is a tab. It’s no longer, as my son pointed out, “a treasure hunt” to find my blogs. Yay!
There are, nonetheless, still quite a few glitches to be fixed. As well, in the months ahead—in anticipation of the April 8 launch of THE SHADOW QUEEN—some design changes to be made. These I will wisely put in the hands of professionals.
I adore fiddling with my website, but it’s keeping me from what I should be doing this morning: editing YA1 (shorthand for what I’m now calling HORTENSE: THE GAME OF HOPE).
And so, to work…
by Sandra Gulland | Oct 9, 2013 | Adventures of a Writing Life |
Every spring and every fall my husband and I make the journey to our “other” home: north to Ontario in the spring, and south to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in the fall.
It’s not an easy move for a historical novelist, not easy wrapping up an office and trying to anticipate what reference books I will need in the months ahead.
This fall my move is additionally complicated by having two works-in-progress in two different eras: THE SHADOW QUEEN (set in the 17th century court of the Sun King) and my first Young Adult novel about Hortense (set in the Napoleonic era).
I don’t like returning to an office still in chaos, so I make an effort to sort things out before I leave. This usually means taking care of things I’ve been putting off, and the big “No, not yet” chore I hadn’t faced this summer was sorting out my books.
The shelves of my little office have been filled to capacity with books on the Court of the Sun King and 17th century life for almost a decade. I needed to find room for my stacks of books on Hortense and her world (other than on the floor), and so all day yesterday I hauled books from one place to another. The ping-pong table room is now well stocked with biographies on Sun Court characters, another basement room cleared of the remnants of my Napoleonic book collection, and the floors of my office are almost clear. (Wow.)
Here are my shelves devoted to Hortense:
And here are the books I’ve yet to find a place for:
(Sigh. Back to work.)
by Sandra Gulland | Aug 18, 2013 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Publication, The Shadow Queen |
The HarperCollins Canada 2014 catalogue!
The main reason for this post is to share a great blog post on writing and publishing.
“25 steps to being a traditionally published author: Lazy Bastard Edition”—a post by Delilah S. Dawson—is an excellent overview of the writing and publishing process, as good an overview as I’ve ever read. I just sent the link to four friends who are working on novels. (Heh. By mistake I typed “wording” on novels.)
To give you the funny-but-hard-hitting sense of it, Step #1 is: If you’re actually lazy, GTFO.
Amen.
On the home front:
THE SHADOW QUEEN has a pub. date: April 8, 2014. I’ve sent off the corrected 1st Pass pages and I’ve only the Acknowledgements and the very last sentences of the novel to tweak. I’ve a storage box on my office floor where everything to do with The Shadow goes now, labelled “archival.” (I.e. my crowded basement.)
No more surprises, right?
Wrong! Yesterday evening, I got this Tweet:
I was speechless! A portrait of my Claude? I didn’t think one existed. (I Googled for it when I began my research and came up with nothing.)
Look familiar?
I’ve emailed Doubleday to find out if they used the portrait as a basis for the cover.
I was pleased when I first saw the cover because the woman looked like how I’d imagined Claude to look. (Eyebrows!)
And now: well! To find out that it looks like the real Claude: I’m blown away.
Late breaking news (two days later): my editor at Doubleday, Melissa Danaczko, checked: the cover designer had never seen a portrait of Claude, much less this one.
Is that spooky-amazing or what?!
by Sandra Gulland | Jul 28, 2013 | Adventures of a Writing Life |
I’m thrilled that the UK is gracing their “tenner” with a portrait of Jane Austen. [Shocking and upsetting update: the young woman who spearheaded this is being massively harassed by threats of rape on Twitter. As in 50 an hour. Sign the petition to get Twitter to make it easier to report abuse.]
I’m coming to think of this as my Jane Austen summer. In addition to a biography and books about Jane Austen, I just finished reading every word of the massively annotated Harvard edition of Pride & Prejudice.
Immediately I ordered a second, Persuasion.
It’s hard to express what a delight these massive editions are. This video gives you a sense of the richness of it:
For me, as a researcher, the scholarly annotations provide a wealth of fascinating information into the daily life of the period.
In short: heaven.
Update: I’m slowing reading (and correcting) the “first pass” of THE SHADOW QUEEN: that is, the typeset script. I have to say: it’s a pleasure. I’m pleased.
I believe I’ve showed the cover before. I love it more and more:
I’m also daily writing the YA about Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine’s daughter. I’m at 40,000 words now, about half-way.
In a few days I’m heading to the Napoleonic Congress in Toronto to give a talk on the documentary about Josephine.
And then back home to sport with friends and family. Happy summer, everyone!
