The return of the Mad Author Lady...
So she came over for supper.
She hasn't finished reading Arizona Tarot because she's been busy trying to secure a publishing deal for some of her stuff.
Apparently she doesn't usually read my sort of thing, as she finds it too dark and archaic and 'like Gene Wolfe' which isn't her cup of tea at all.
She later confessed that she found Arizona Tarot disappointing and dismissed it as 'archaic fantasy', which is also apparently bad. (I'm slightly confused as to her exact meaning. Yes, it's set in 1870, so people speak differently, but the narration isn't purposefully Dickensian or anything. Possibly she just thinks that historical fantasy is overdone as a genre, I dunno.)
So, yeah. She's not a fan, which was rather sadlyfoxears. From what little she said I found it very hard to judge whether it's simply not her kinda story, or whether she finds the quality of writing and the story itself flawed.
Anyhow; then I read her a (very) short story about The Bitch From Under The Bed and she was suddenly incredibly enthusiastic and bouncy: she wants to wave it under the noses of editors and agents various and introduce me to people and goodness knows what else. She tried to get me to swear to stop 'pissing about with archaic fantasy' and write more things like TBFUTB, because that was my writer's voice.
(I'm confused by this too, as I don't think my sentence structure or style are markedly different in the two pieces. The main difference is one has the usual impersonal narration, and the other addresses the audience directly - which is fine in a short story but rather unusual and possibly intrusive in a novel I should imagine.)
Generally, all in all, I feel like this:
She hasn't finished reading Arizona Tarot because she's been busy trying to secure a publishing deal for some of her stuff.
Apparently she doesn't usually read my sort of thing, as she finds it too dark and archaic and 'like Gene Wolfe' which isn't her cup of tea at all.
She later confessed that she found Arizona Tarot disappointing and dismissed it as 'archaic fantasy', which is also apparently bad. (I'm slightly confused as to her exact meaning. Yes, it's set in 1870, so people speak differently, but the narration isn't purposefully Dickensian or anything. Possibly she just thinks that historical fantasy is overdone as a genre, I dunno.)
So, yeah. She's not a fan, which was rather sadlyfoxears. From what little she said I found it very hard to judge whether it's simply not her kinda story, or whether she finds the quality of writing and the story itself flawed.
Anyhow; then I read her a (very) short story about The Bitch From Under The Bed and she was suddenly incredibly enthusiastic and bouncy: she wants to wave it under the noses of editors and agents various and introduce me to people and goodness knows what else. She tried to get me to swear to stop 'pissing about with archaic fantasy' and write more things like TBFUTB, because that was my writer's voice.
(I'm confused by this too, as I don't think my sentence structure or style are markedly different in the two pieces. The main difference is one has the usual impersonal narration, and the other addresses the audience directly - which is fine in a short story but rather unusual and possibly intrusive in a novel I should imagine.)
Generally, all in all, I feel like this: