Sandra Gulland's Blog, page 48
October 24, 2009
A question to internationally-published authors
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What can be done to avoid bad covers? What do you do?
I'm still in shock from the arrival, yesterday, of a box of the French edition of my novel, Mistress of the Sun. My heroine, Petite (based on the real-life and blonde Lousie de La Vallière), is portrayed as a woman with jet black hair.
Forget all the historical inaccuracies: that her head is uncovered and her hair loose over her shoulders; that she's wearing what appears to be a ball gown on horseback. Forget that the ugly horse looks h...
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What can be done to avoid bad covers? What do you do?
I'm still in shock from the arrival, yesterday, of a box of the French edition of my novel, Mistress of the Sun. My heroine, Petite (based on the real-life and blonde Lousie de La Vallière), is portrayed as a woman with jet black hair.
Forget all the historical inaccuracies: that her head is uncovered and her hair loose over her shoulders; that she's wearing what appears to be a ball gown on horseback. Forget that the ugly horse looks h...
October 22, 2009
Post-finishing doubts
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Now that I have finished the first draft of The Next Novel, I'm awash with doubts. I don't think I've gotten to the heart of the story.
What about ... ?
And shouldn't she have ... ?
Etc. etc. etc.
I shouldn't actually question this: of course I haven't gotten to the heart of it!
I've read two excellent on-line accounts recently by authors who went through painfully long revision processes. The first is Junot Díaz's account of writing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He struggled with this...
.
Now that I have finished the first draft of The Next Novel, I'm awash with doubts. I don't think I've gotten to the heart of the story.
What about ... ?
And shouldn't she have ... ?
Etc. etc. etc.
I shouldn't actually question this: of course I haven't gotten to the heart of it!
I've read two excellent on-line accounts recently by authors who went through painfully long revision processes. The first is Junot Díaz's account of writing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He struggled with this...
