Hana
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Do you have any other books in the works? This was one of the best books I've read in years and it felt so complete there was no need for a sequel, but I'd love to explore other things you're writing!
Scott Hawkins
Hey Hana,
Thanks! I appreciate both the kind words and the interest in a next book. I do have one in the works, but it's not the book I talked about in response to earlier questions.
Starting around the time Mount Char came out I spent a little over a year working on a story about a fugitive named Jackie who gets hired by a pretzel billionaire named Bob to look into a weird school shooting. I've got a couple hundred thousand words on the page (that's about 2-3x normal book length), but the @^$# thing never came together. I may return to it at some point--I'm nothing if not stubborn--but for now, that project is dead.
It's probably for the best, honestly. I showed the first couple chapters to several people, and the reactions were lukewarm. Nobody hated, it wasn't terrible or anything, there just wasn't much spark there. For my part, I'd gotten to where I dreaded sitting down to work on the thing.
It just wasn't working.
So following a long conversation, everybody (agent, editor, me) agreed that maybe I should take a little break from that and work on something that sounded fun. Don't worry about whether it's commercial, etc.
So I did that starting in, I think, August of 2016. So, 3-ish months, now? This one feels much better. It's weird, it's funny, and it's definitely not an idea that's been done to death. Whether anyone likes it but me is very much an open question, but I'm pretty confident I'll finish a draft in the not-too-terribly distant future.
It's about a woman named Josie who lives in the woods with a bunch of dogs. About two pages in the dogs start talking, then about two pages later it takes a long swan dive into the really weird end of the pool. It's not immediately clear whether Josie is just nuts or whether this is happening. (TBH, I'm not 100% sure myself, and I'm about half done.) But adventures are had.
Anyway, I appreciate your interest--really; you have no idea --and I wish I had more for you.
Scott
Thanks! I appreciate both the kind words and the interest in a next book. I do have one in the works, but it's not the book I talked about in response to earlier questions.
Starting around the time Mount Char came out I spent a little over a year working on a story about a fugitive named Jackie who gets hired by a pretzel billionaire named Bob to look into a weird school shooting. I've got a couple hundred thousand words on the page (that's about 2-3x normal book length), but the @^$# thing never came together. I may return to it at some point--I'm nothing if not stubborn--but for now, that project is dead.
It's probably for the best, honestly. I showed the first couple chapters to several people, and the reactions were lukewarm. Nobody hated, it wasn't terrible or anything, there just wasn't much spark there. For my part, I'd gotten to where I dreaded sitting down to work on the thing.
It just wasn't working.
So following a long conversation, everybody (agent, editor, me) agreed that maybe I should take a little break from that and work on something that sounded fun. Don't worry about whether it's commercial, etc.
So I did that starting in, I think, August of 2016. So, 3-ish months, now? This one feels much better. It's weird, it's funny, and it's definitely not an idea that's been done to death. Whether anyone likes it but me is very much an open question, but I'm pretty confident I'll finish a draft in the not-too-terribly distant future.
It's about a woman named Josie who lives in the woods with a bunch of dogs. About two pages in the dogs start talking, then about two pages later it takes a long swan dive into the really weird end of the pool. It's not immediately clear whether Josie is just nuts or whether this is happening. (TBH, I'm not 100% sure myself, and I'm about half done.) But adventures are had.
Anyway, I appreciate your interest--really; you have no idea --and I wish I had more for you.
Scott
More Answered Questions
M
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Thank you for writing this novel. I came across it almost by accident and was intrigued -- as a book nerd -- with the idea of an urban fantasy novel with a library as the focus. While I don't read 'everything' (I have my own particular preferred genres and I stay there) Mt Char has to be the most unique 'idea' I've read since Lovecraft. Did you have trouble selling this novel and getting it picked up by a publisher?
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Oct 31, 2016 06:40PM · flag
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