Theme
8:13am June 18, 2014
madlymel asked: So, I'm sitting here looking at your most recent post and it occurs to me how incredible the YW series is. I started reading it when I was about Nita's age in SYWTBAW (found it in my local library, too). And it featured a strong, smart female protagonist, a hispanic MC, science, magic, dragons, sentient cars ... I can't think of a single other novel from my childhood like it (and I grew up in the 80's) and I know that books like that are still rare today. How did you manage to get it published?

dduane:

I honestly don’t know. Luck?

(And it truly has to be acknowledged—no matter how much a writer might wish that it wasn’t so—that a certain amount of this stuff that happens in your career is down to sheer, blind luck. You’re standing in the right place, at the right time, with a manuscript in your hands, and things happen.)

Viewed dispassionately (insofar as anything of the kind is possible before the morning’s caffeine has really had a chance to take) I have to admit there was a strange confluence of factors that would’ve affected the situation. Let’s take the developmental stuff first and then shade into the more conjectural end of things.

…Adding a cut here because it’s going to get a bit analytical. (But at least there’s a joke at the end….)

Read More

Notes:
  1. ccgwrites reblogged this from dduane and added:
    This is a really fascinating peek into how the sausage gets made–sausage in this case being one of the all-time great YA...
  2. sarekofvulcan reblogged this from dduane
  3. godlessondheimite reblogged this from dduane
  4. clamlam reblogged this from dduane
  5. the-orchestrator reblogged this from dduane
  6. lizzieraindrops reblogged this from dduane
  7. rockinlibrarian said: Of COURSE the L'Engle similarity was a factor! It all makes sense! (I booktalk Young Wizards as L'Engle readalikes) (which, by the way, is a high compliment by my standards).
  8. catseamus reblogged this from dduane
  9. nyquildriver reblogged this from dduane
  10. otherpeoplescreativity reblogged this from dduane and added:
    The moral of the joke at the end applies to a lot of other things in life, too, really.
  11. buurenaar reblogged this from dduane
  12. waywren reblogged this from dduane