The writing has reached the unpleasant point where the euphoria of having finished the first draft has finished, and while feeling pleasantly undaunted by the prospect of revising and re-writing - one begins to wonder what will happen if it meets the same enthusiastic lack of interest the other works have experienced, if it will ever get published, and all the fond hopes that one had had on completion of the work seem to be nothing but egotistical fantasy. But this time I did feel I was beginning to get the hang of it all, the writing lark I mean. It is far from being a work of "extraordinary genius" - it may be more commercial than literary - although I hope it has enough resonances to last a little longer than some of the books I've read recently.
I was introduced to the concept of "alterity" last night - or rather the word for it - I was aware of the idea, I just don't know what the current academic/theoretical names for things are. Anyway, in literature it was described as being "magical realism lite" - which I rather liked. I would hesitate to describe The Malice of Fairies as magical realism exactly. M has always snorted that there is too much "magical" stuff in my other works. This is monstrously unfair - I wish it were so.
The above is copied from the other blog... and since then, I have had a rave review from a very kind friend who "couldn't put it down"... this is the first person to read it all, and since she has an English degree I will take her compliment reasonably seriously. She thought the end needed more jeopardy. She's right. I think I may betray the conventional wisdom about leaving a first draft fallow for a bit - and just re-write it now, "while the humour is on me" as Tara said earlier.
I was introduced to the concept of "alterity" last night - or rather the word for it - I was aware of the idea, I just don't know what the current academic/theoretical names for things are. Anyway, in literature it was described as being "magical realism lite" - which I rather liked. I would hesitate to describe The Malice of Fairies as magical realism exactly. M has always snorted that there is too much "magical" stuff in my other works. This is monstrously unfair - I wish it were so.
The above is copied from the other blog... and since then, I have had a rave review from a very kind friend who "couldn't put it down"... this is the first person to read it all, and since she has an English degree I will take her compliment reasonably seriously. She thought the end needed more jeopardy. She's right. I think I may betray the conventional wisdom about leaving a first draft fallow for a bit - and just re-write it now, "while the humour is on me" as Tara said earlier.
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