Pam had a suggestion:
Publish Hannah’s medical journals. Or fragments of the same. A partial even. Sort of a Sabine and Griffin-ish publication in appearance. You’d have to collaborate with your favourite artists and font designers, but isn’t that interesting regardless? Include side notes where Hannah, in her old age, goes back over the journal and adds reflections in a Curiosity-like manner. And Hannah hopefully will not age cynically.
I’d include recipes, character portraits of her notable patients, and a list of symptoms and diagnoses. Bonus – sketches Lily had done and given to Hannah could be clipped in or inserted (imagine on tracing paper weight paper, they fall out of the book when you unseal it from its vacuum packed plastic wrapping – hey, other things might fall out too. Hm, what budget am I imagining here? Craziness.). And, Neat-o. Likely a bugger to publish. And expensive. Us fans would simply drool and wonder what was in the plastic wrap until our birthdays or Christmas, eh?
I think I once mentioned that a not-so-secret desire of mine was to include letters in the novels. Not transcriptions of the letters, but folded letters, in handwriting. Yellowed paper, the whole thing. So you’d have the sense of holding the actual letter Nathaniel wrote to Elizabeth while he was in New Orleans. Also, newspaper clippings. All these bits could be in an old fashioned (miniature) letter portfolio in the back of the novel. And if we’re going there, the story itself could be illustrated. Not in the traditional sense — a glossy page with a formal painting showing a cabin in the woods — but small illustrations on various pages. The pine tree with the crooked top. Elizabeth’s writing table.
So I love Pam’s idea. Given the realities of the way publishing works, it’s unlikely to ever happen — unless suddenly all five books in the series jumped to the top ten NYT bestseller list. Ha!
I so love both of these ideas… it would just add to the fantasy of it all – complete immersion (like I don’t loose my self already! lol). The whole multi-layered feel, cool! I just wish it was more a possibility than a dream…
I love the idea too! How fantastic would that be. Pam’s idea is brilliant – I’d love to read Hannah’s journals, Curiosity’s favourite receipes not to mention Lily’s sketches.
Rosina, maybe book number 7 needs to be the final book in the series or this one could be a stand-alone book. The idea of letters, sketches etc that are printed on discoloured paper is great but really I’d be very happy to have then included into the book in the traditional publishing way (hope that makes sense).
Actually you know what I think would be even better – Curiosity’s diary! How interesting would that be – reading all the tit bits that Curiosity has collected over her long and interesting life. Now that would be a hard to put down book!!!
Dianne
It is a great idea!
Paullina Simons has written the very popular The Bronze Horseman trilogy (which she seems to have great difficulty getting published in the US for some reason – but I digress) and she is about to publish a cookbook that features recipes mentioned in the series, and will include a series of anecdotes from the lives of the main characters. I see this as being a similar kind of idea to the one that you outlined above.
Magnificent idea! The image that popped into my mind immediately was Little House books, they had some illustrations. And didn’t Anne Proulx’s The Shipping News, have a different knot at each chapter head?
It’s been a long time since I have been to your blog… and what do you go and do??? change it.
Wasn’t it originally Sarah’s… thoughts? laughs? or something? Ahhh, I remember it well.
Well, I have good news. I am finally going to be published in a national magazine. Animal Wellness Magazine is printing an article I wrote on the making of my film, FREE to a Good Home. (www.fghmovie.com).
On stands March 15th! Very exciting!
So, I am looking at redoing my website. And your Sarah… laughs? or something? was one of my favorites. It was very earthy.
SO glad I found you!
Judy