Day: January 11, 2005

Letter from Nhorad

Letter from Nhorad

Dear Todd

That’s OK, mistakes happen, after all, were only human.*sigh* But, I do thank you for your encouragement. By the way, I have a question. Has there ever been an author under the age of 17? Just courious. You know, I don’t have very much writing talent, no drawing talent at all, I don’t know what my purpose in life is at all!Arrgggghhh! Frustrating!..Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble. Hehe, better stop talking before I get myself into trouble. Well, thanks again, see you soon.

Sincerly

Nhorad

Hey Nhorad!

Happy New Year! The answer is Christopher Paolini who wrote Eragon at 15. Also add Ally Sheedy who wrote “She Was Nice to Mice” at age 12 and went on to star in such films as “Short Circuit” and “WarGames.”

Purpose in life is always hard to find and it usually takes a lot of living before you discover it. A lot of people never do. The usual advice is try everything, permit yourself to fail (learn to fail gracefully — realize that the only way to get better is to make mistakes and learn from them), and remember that you can easily become an expert in two completely unrelated fields in your lifetime.

Cheers,
Todd


Dragonsblood is in my hands!

Dragonsblood is in my hands!

Whee! I have two copies hot off the presses. I shall put one on my brag shelf immediately and I think I’ll just fondle the other one for a long while.

Letter from Dave

Letter from Dave

Todd,

I am here at my Lab wishing I were home reading the second half of Dragonsblood. I, too, scored an ARC, probably after Motorcycle Gramma outbid me on the first one I bid on. Don’t worry, I’ll buy one real one to keep you employed if I like the ARC. For now, I’m pacing myself with the ARC. I’ll write again when I’m done.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I’ve edited down what you said because I wasn’t sure if you didn’t give away too much for some (future) readers. I think about mid-March I might be willing to discuss more details because I expect that by then most everyone coming to the website will have read the book.

You don’t have to buy “a real one.” I might pout and sniff, and I certainly will feel a bit ambivalent about the ARCs being sold on eBay because the ARCs aren’t the real book. That’s probably truer in the case of Dragon’s Kin than in the case of Dragonsblood but even in the case of Dragonsblood there were enough changes made that reading the ARC won’t give you the same experience as reading the book proper.

In fact, when Dragon’s Kin went to press for its paperback printing, I managed to correct a number of glitches that I’d noticed. In particular, and with Dragonsblood, the verses that open each chapter are now left-justified instead of centered, looking more (but not quite) like the verses in the orignal Dragonflight and the Harper Hall series. Beyond fixing a number of typos in Dragon’s Kin, I also fixed one paragraph where I’d previously made a bad editing call.

Still, with Dragonsblood you’ll miss the beautiful cover if you only stick with the ARC. And you’ll have to wonder whether I ever caught all the typos you caught (for example, the two places where Lemos is mis-spelled “Lemose”).

So far I’ve donated two ARCs to charities, so it may be that you and Motorcycle Grandma have those (I believe I signed both of them).

Cheers,
Todd


Letter from Teannette

Letter from Teannette

Dear Todd,

I see you will be doing signings in California for Dragonsblood. Will that be the only signings for this book? Or will the rest of us be seeing you somewhere, say in St. Louis? (Amazing, isn’t it, that I happen to live near there?) I have been saving my Barnes and Noble Christmas giftcard I received from my son just for this occasion! Can’t wait for it…

Teannette 🙂

Hi Teanette!

Happy New Year!

I’m signing in southern California because I live there. If someone were to offer to fly me out to St. Louis, I’d be happy to sign there as well. Actually, I should be careful what I say — Mum was once flown through 28 cities in 30 days and it took her half a year to recover. Given that I’ve been laid up for the past four days with a transatlantic airline cold, I’m not sure I’d want to be booked up for such a wild signing trip myself.

Dragonsblood is out in 14 days. My editor sent me some advance hot-off-the-press copies of the real thing and it looks gorgeous!

Cheers,
Todd