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discussion questions: into the wilderness

Posted in wilderness related. 8 March 2010

For the third time in less than a month, somebody emailed to ask me about discussion questions for ITW. There never was an official list of such questions, unless I’m blanking on it.

Anybody care to suggest a discussion question, limited to the first book in the series? I bet you lot could come up with some good ones.

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details

Posted in wilderness related. 7 March 2010

kiwi.lana commented that one of the reasons she likes the Wilderness series is that she loves being able to trust the details.

Which is a huge compliment, and at the same time, makes me nervous.

Because I do get things wrong.  For example: hay bales were an impossibility in 1793, but I’ve got them in Into the Wilderness. There are more than a few things like that scattered through the books. Fewer as the series went on and I learned not to trust my instincts on a lot of things.  But many times I came across conflicting information, or couldn’t find the information I needed anywhere, so I had to deduce from what I could find.

When I do get things right on topics I know nothing about, it’s because I found the right resources, or I was able to talk to somebody who is an expert in that area.  In the earlier books I had no idea about trapping in the Adirondacks in the late 18th century – or in any century, for that matter. I had to turn to a friend whose husband hunts and traps with historical re-enactment type attention to detail. Many of the medical details were discussed at length with my own doctor. I found early on that while most MDs don’t like to be asked medical questions at social gatherings, if you have two of them together and you ask so, in situation x, what could have reasonably killed this character?

I think most MDs are wanna-be mystery writers, because they jump right on this kind of question with enthusiasm.

So this is my declaration of not-perfection. I work hard at it, but I don’t catch every anachronism.

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somehow this got filed away

Posted in wilderness related. 4 March 2010

I’ve had a lot of questions over the years from well-meaning people who compare my work to Diana Gabaldon’s.  Then there is almost as much mail asking me if I resent being compared to Diana.

Comment: You are a Gabaldon wanna-be.

Answer: Well, of course. Who wouldn’t want to write such beloved novels?

Comment: Do you wish sometimes people would stop saying you two write alike?

Answer: Yes. And no. That comparison would never have occurred to anybody if Diana hadn’t been so supportive and generous when I was getting started. It was the cover blurb she gave me that started the snowball rolling. I owe a lot to Diana and the cover blurb, but it has been frustrating sometimes,  mostly because in my eye, her novels are very different from mine in every way.  If I could banish one sentence from the internet it would be: If you like Diana Gabaldon, you’ll like Sara Donati. And of course that would be self defeating, because it’s exactly that connection that has caused so many people to pick up one the books in the first place.

So why am I raising this right now, just after the sixth and last book in the series has been published?

I was digging through archived email yesterday and I came across this message from Diana, which she wrote in response to an email from me in which I grumbled about the constant comparisons. This email exchange happened during that period  I was active on her Compuserve craft-of-writing discussion board.  I wish I had found this a few years ago, but better late than never.  Here it is, for whatever it’s worth. (click on the image for a much larger and more readable version).

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bookreviews

Posted in the book biz. 2 March 2010

As I remember, y’all liked my book reviews. I’ve been spending a couple minutes a day for the last month or so trying to retrieve all the fiction reviews I’ve posted, here or anywhere else,  (which were scattered to the winds, to my annoyance), and putting them all in one place. So if you are interested in old reviews or new ones (I put one up now and then) head on over to goodreads.

Sara’s over at goodreads too and has an author page, but she’s refusing to participate. So everything there is under my name.

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endless forest meets the wall street journal. yikes.

Posted in the book biz, wilderness related. 25 February 2010

Now, this was a surprise. A great surprise. When I got the email from google alerting me to a cite of The Endless Forest, at first I didn’t believe it.   Certainly made my day.

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which untold story would you most like to read? (new start)

Posted in wilderness related. 24 February 2010

I forgot Blue-Jay and Susanna in the list (horrors). So if you voted already you can vote again.

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Mohawk language notes

Posted in wilderness related. 24 February 2010

I had a very nice email today, which I thought I would share:

My mother (87 years young) is reading your book “Into the Wilderness” and happens to be a Mohawk native from Kahnawake, Quebec. She wants to know how you are familiar with the Mohawk language –as it appears in the book many times — I told her I would write to you to find out your connection to the language. As you know, native tongue is phonetic but she was able to understand all the Mohawk in the book – quite a surprise to her.

I would so appreciate a response — my mother  is very curious!!

And of course I did write back. It’s very gratifying to get this kind of note. And it’s a relief, too.

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review of tef out of new zealand

Posted in the book biz, wilderness related. 22 February 2010

Here’s a link (link #21)) to a podcast review of The Endless Forest, recorded by Radio New Zealand. The name of the show is Nine To Noon with Kathryn Ryan, and the reviewer is Louise O’Brien.

If you don’t care to go listen, here’s a summary of Ms O’Brien’s remarks (note: she hadn’t read the first five novels in the series):

1. Homestead was a wonderful novel.
2. The Endless Forest = what a come down, no charm* = but everybody has to eat.
3. Endless Forest = moral tale, young brides being initiated into the pleasures of the marriage bed.
4. Not even as good as Gabaldon. Other, better historical romance out there, like Jane Austen.
5. Forgettable.
6. Life is too short to waste on this novel.

It seems that Ms. O’Brien is terribly disappointed with me; I’ve forsaken literature for schlock. I’ve turned my face away from the light.

Two points of confusion:

*if Homestead is charming, what would Ms. O’Brien call Dante’s Inferno? A laugh riot? A bucolic romp?

I am very proud of Homestead, but by no stretch of the imagination can it be called charming.  Right before it came out I said to my editor: this is such a sad, dark book, nobody is going to want to read it. And she didn’t correct me. In an interview with an NPR station when Homestead first came out, the host commented that Ingmar Bergman would be the right director if Homestead were ever made into a movie.  He’s so good at scratching away at the dark heart of the human psyche, don’t you think? Not that I like the idea of Ingmar Bergman fussing with Homestead, but it comes far closer to the truth of that novel than charming does.

**To write historical novels is to write about a period that is not your own. As far as I know, Jane Austen wrote contemporary novels. It just so happens that her contemporary is our historical.

So TEF clearly isn’t her cuppa tea, which is fine and dandy.  Life is too short to waste on Ms. O’Brien’s opinions.

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quick explanation

Posted in at this moment. 19 February 2010

I haven’t been around much this week, because we’ve been dealing with a family tragedy. Our oldest cat — Jane Austen, age 16 — got sick very suddenly with a very aggressive cancer.

When the Girlchild was four, went went to the Humane Society and she picked Jane out of what seemed like a hundred kittens looking for a home.  So you can imagine how hard this was for her.

Yesterday the vet came to the house and helped Jane go. A very sad and stressful week, all in all.  Thank goodness we still have feisty Lily-the-Maine-Coon hanging around, because she has been a great comfort.

I will try to get through the comments I haven’t been able to read yet today.

Also I wanted to say: I am so pleased and thankful that so many people are jumping into the conversation. It is making this transition to the post-wilderness world a much easier one for me.

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Harriett Klausner: slow down. please. *updated*

Posted in wilderness related. 15 February 2010

Harriett Klausner is a professional book reviewer who is tremendously productive. So productive that some critics  have claimed there’s something fishy going on behind the screen.

I have not jumped on that bandwagon and I will not, but I have to say that her reviews of my books have often contained fairly hefty inaccuracies. For the most part I make a Marge Simpson frustration sound, and go on my way. However. Klausner’s  review of The Endless Forest at Genre-Go-Round (her own blog, I think)  crosses the line.

Klausner  has been the focus of some pretty strong but difficult to counter critcism, as can be seen here at the Dayton Daily News. It’s a simple matter of math,  her critics will tell you.  Personally, I don’t care how many books she reads a day, but if her vaunted speed reading is the source of inaccuracies, then I think she should slow down.

I’m not going to quote the EF  here because the more false things get repeated, the faster they spread.  Have a look, if you care to, and then come back and give me your thoughts.

——

From the very supportive comments I get the sense that I didn’t make myself clear. The reason the HK review made me unhappy was the fact that she was wrong about Martha’s relationship to Daniel. The way she’s described it, it smacks of incest. And really, that’s the worst kind of factual mistake in a review.

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