Site Announcements 2004

This page archives the announcements that Diana sent in 2004, which were originally posted on the home page.

12 November 2004

Oooookay. Well, I do apologize for the long delay in updating things here, as well as for the fact that my correspondence has gone to hell in a handbasket.

The main reason for this is a good one--i.e., I've been working hard on A Breath of Snow and Ashes. [g]

Yes, I hope to finish it by Christmas or thereabouts.

Yes, that means it will undoubtedly be out sometime in 2005.

No, I have no idea when. The publisher(s) set the publication date(s), and they probably won't do that until after I've actually delivered the book. (Not that they haven't tried before, evidently under the mistaken impression that if they informed everyone that the new book would be out on X date, I would somehow perform a miracle and finish it before that date. Ha.)

Besides writing madly, I've also spent a good part of the summer dispatching adult children to their assorted colleges and graduate schools--but now they're All Gone. Peace and quiet, what a concept. [g] (Actually, "gone" is a relative term; they all call or email every day, and come home on weekends, but still. I can now fit the weekly grocery shopping into the trunk of my Audi, without having to stack Diet Dr. Pepper and cases of granola bars in the back seat.)

In addition to these benign events, though, I'm sorry to report that my husband's kind and competent assistant, whom he lends me to help with the email, bookplates, etc. had a series of horrible disasters among her family, starting at the beginning of the summer and going on for months. Out of respect for her privacy, I can't tell you all the gory details--suffice it to say that it involved arson, assault, assorted antisocial behaviors, and the participation of a number of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI--and I couldn't make up stuff like that if I were smoking dope and locoweed.

Since she was compelled to take time off to deal with all these hideous things, the rest of us were sort of picking up bits and pieces of her regular job--with varying levels of competence. It was three weeks before anyone remembered to go fetch the mail from my Post Office box (which is how I came to meet the interesting gentleman from The Serbian Times, as I was dragging a giant USPO bin full of heather-scented hand-made goat-milk soap, books of spiritual poetry, St. Bridgid's crosses, Japanese manga art of Jamie smoking a cigar, and other generous gifts, out to my car...but that's another story). And I'm afraid that if you emailed my AOL account anytime during the summer, AOL probably ate your message before I was able to get to it.

[As a result of all this trauma, my husband's assistant decided to semi-retire, only coming into the office for a couple of hours a day, to handle bookkeeping for his business, and bookplates for me. Evidently, though, some sex pervert has started hanging around my husband's place of business, harassing the tenants, and--while standing outside on the sidewalk, for heaven's sake--dropping his pants and er...um...performing objectionable acts while facing the plate-glass windows. With a manila folder masking his features, by report. In a way, you have to admire his nerve; it isn't by any means a deserted sort of neighborhood, and the bar next door is heavily patronized by members of the Scottsdale PD. It isn't doing the assistant's nerves any good, though. She may decide that association with us is deleterious to her health and retire all the way--though I did urge Doug to offer her the loan of my Glock, if she'd like.]

Anyway....

Bookplates

I think we've managed to keep up with the mailed bookplate requests, but if you sent me an email request...well, if you haven't yet received any bookplates, you might want to try again, sending me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and a note of how many bookplates you'd like, and how they should be inscribed. Send this to P.O. Box 584, Scottsdale, AZ 85252-0584--and I promise that somebody will go retrieve it in a timely manner. [g]

[BTW--I realized, as the result of assorted emails, that not everyone knows what a bookplate is. It's a small sticky label (they come in different sizes; the ones I use are about 2.5"X 3"), generally with some kind of artwork on it, which can be autographed by the author of a book and stuck in said book--or which can merely be used as indications of ownership--"This Book is From the Library of Josephus Llewellyn Cadwallader"--in case you lend books and want to remind your friends where they got one. (Frankly, I've never found that this makes any difference to whether you get the book back or not. Which is why I don't lend books with any expectation of getting them back; I just give them away.)

Anyway, here is an illustration of what the bookplates I use look like. No, I don't charge for them.]

Oh--and for those who have written to ask about sending me your books to autograph, I don't charge for that, either. [g] Happy to do it. Send them to the same address-P.O. Box 584, Scottsdale, AZ 85252-0584, with some kind of stamped mailer or box to send them back in.

Movies

OK, so since we're updating, let's address the Question of Burning Concern to Nearly Everyone but Me--

What about a movie?

Well, look. People approach us (me and my agents) all the time--literally, every month or so--about optioning the book(s) for film.

You want to be careful about whom you sign things with--because while most options never do result in an actual movie being made...it might. And I have had producers want to move the setting to Vietnam or the Gulf War ("for relevance"), or suggest that while of course Jamie must be Scottish, they really don't see why Claire can't be an American...

See, once you sign over the film rights, you (mostly) cease to have anything to say about what happens. So we're very careful about making this kind of deal, and have only done it four times, since Outlander was published.

So. At the moment, we are in fact discussing a movie contract with some Very Interesting People. But since we haven't gone further than discussions, I really can't tell you anything else at this point.

Rest assured; if anything happens, I'll be sure to tell you about it! [g]

[I will note, for those of you who so kindly keep sending me pictures of people you think resemble Jamie, that he is much thinner than you apparently think. He's built like a basketball-player, not a football player--and the sorts of beefy-faced lugs you guys come up with...(shaking head). Look, the man has bones in his face. And he's not a milk-skinned red-head, either; he's one of the ruddy, semi-auburn, bronzy kind. Think Ioan Gryffydd or Gerald Butler--that sort of thing. And you guys with the Mel Gibson fixation...get over it. A short, middle-aged guy in a kilt is not Jamie.]

The Next Book, and the next book, and the last book

All right. Now this bit is my fault, for not having done something about the excerpt page before now. I'd foolishly assumed that if I said on the front page of the website that the next book is titled A Breath of Snow and Ashes, you would all figure right, the next book is titled A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

Little did I know that a lot of you would skip my prefatory remarks, go straight to the excerpts page, and be terminally confused by the fact that when I last updated that page (lo, these many years ago), the working title ("working title" means "we gotta have some way of referring to this book, so this is what we'll call it until we come up with something better") of the next book WAS (note past tense, please) Sons of Liberty.

[Well, actually, it isn't all my fault. The nimrods at Amazon are to blame for this confusion, too, especially the ones at amazon.co.uk. These bozos somehow picked up several working titles off my website years ago, and have ever since been not only advertising these titles, but actually taking orders for them--blithely disregarding the fact that these books not only aren't yet written, but will never actually EXIST under those titles!!!]

So, all right. Pay attention, here, please, so we can sort this out:

The next--and sixth--novel in the main Outlander series (starring Jamie, Claire, Brianna, Roger, Young Ian, and Rollo the dog)--is titled--[fanfare of trumpets]

A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Ok? Got that straight?

Good. Now.

This is not--repeat, NOT--the last book in the Outlander series.

I don't, at this point, know whether there will be one more book following A Breath of Snow and Ashes, or whether there might be two. I want to get all the way through the American Revolution, and that was a rather long and complex war. But we'll have to see when the time comes.

So. IF the next--the SEVENTH--book in the series (the one after A Breath of Snow and Ashes, OK?) is indeed the last one, then it will probably (but not certainly) be called King, Farewell. (Referring to the demise of the British monarchy, geddit?)

But. IF the next--the SEVENTH--book is NOT the last one...well, then it won't be called King, Farewell, because George III will still be in business, ruling (he thinks) the American Colonies. It'll be called something else, but I don't know what, because I don't know whether that book exists yet, or not.

OK. We're not even going to talk about the further Lord John Grey books here, because Some People (and you know who you are--especially you guys who work for Amazon) will get tangled up in their underwear and confuse those books with A Breath of Snow and Ashes, in spite of the fact that they all have "LORD JOHN AND..." in the title, precisely to prevent that sort of confusion.

HOWEVER

Lord John and the Private Matter has, with luck, been out long enough that most people have got it straight what that is. I.e., it is part of the Outlander series, BUT it does not deal with Jamie and Claire. It's a side-look, at what Lord John Grey was doing, after he left Jamie at Helwater in the middle of Voyager. And I wrote it under the delusion that it was a short story, so do stop asking me why I decided to "go in this new direction." I didn't go anywhere, OK? It was an accident.

Anyway, this particular book--Lord John and the Private Matter--is about to be published in the trade paperback version (that's the large-format paperback) in the U.S., and has just been published in mass-market paperback (that's the small one) in the UK.

I mention this only because these two editions contain not only the novel, Lord John and the Private Matter, but also the original short story that caused me to write about Lord John--Lord John and the Hellfire Club (originally published under the title Hellfire, in a British anthology titled Past Poisons: An Ellis Peters Memorial Anthology of Historical Crime, edited by Maxim Jakubowski)--and ALSO....

The first three chapters of A Breath of Snow and Ashes, just so you'll believe that book really exists. [g]

[I note in passing that while I don't normally like any human figures on the covers of my books--since these are figments of the illustrator's imagination, and can't possibly bear any resemblance to the real characters--I did allow the UK publisher to use a human figure on the cover of the mass-market paperback for Lord John and the Private Matter. Why? Well...because--by sheer accident--the 18th century painting they chose does in fact actually look more or less like Lord John.

The painting is by an 18th century Dutch painter named Godfried von Schalken, and while I would certainly not speculate as to Herr von Schalken's sexual orientation, this painting is titled "Self-Portrait by Candlelight," and...er...well...he looks like Lord John, give or take a few shades of hair color. (shrug)]

And here is an shot of that cover, for the benefit of any of you who would like to know what he looks like, but don't necessarily want to know badly enough to go look at amazon.co.uk. [g]

--Diana

19 July 2004

Informal 'Quickie' Signing at the Poisoned Pen - Friday, July 23, 3PM

In order to help get books signed for folk who missed me at the Celtic Festival, I'm signing books in Flagstaff mid-week (I.e., Right Now [g]), but will also be doing a quick drop-in signing at The Poisoned Pen bookstore (on Goldwater Blvd., in Scottsdale) this Friday, July 23, about 3 PM. Just in case anybody local really wants to see me. [g] Otherwise, you can just drop your books by, I'll sign them, and you can come pick them up at your convenience.

MEA CULPA...

In spades. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone in sight--especially the poor people who came to see me at the Flagstaff Celtic Festival yesterday!

I feel terrible that I wasn't there, and I do beg your collective pardons. The great temptation is to say that I had a major car breakdown on I-17 or developed an unexpected case of scrofula or beri-beri--but the truth is that we came back from Santa Fe on Friday night, moderately fried from travel, threw our bags into the corner and collapsed.

I woke up Saturday morning without the slightest inkling that it wasn't merely Saturday, and puttered around in a state of pleasant grogginess, doing laundry, tidying up, fetching groceries, and then sitting down to pick up the threads of A Breath of Snow and Ashes (the good news is that it looks like about 2/3 of the book is complete, and the rest is in good shape).

At 10:30 PM, I woke abruptly from a nap to the hideous realization that it was July 17. I sat bolt upright, smacked myself in the head and yelled, "Oh, RATS!!!"--to the considerable startlement of my husband, who was sleeping next to me.

I think I've only blanked out completely like this once before, in nearly fifteen years of appearances, but of course that doesn't make the second time when I do any better.

Anyway, I do grovel abjectly, and if any of you had come wanting books signed, let's figure out how to do that. If you'd be happy with signed bookplates, please email me, and I'll send them to you. If you really want the books themselves signed, and you live in Flagstaff, please take them to the Aradia bookstore. I'll be in Flagstaff next week, and will be sure to stop by the store and sign everything.

If you don't live in Flagstaff, but live in the Phoenix area, please bring your books to The Poisoned Pen on Goldwater Blvd.; I'll stop there during the week as well. Or--if you don't live anywhere convenient and still want books signed, please send them to me at P.O. Box 584, Scottsdale, AZ 85252-0584; I'll pay the return postage to get them back to you.

But I do apologize, particularly to the organizers of the Festival, and I hope they'll forgive me and invite me to try again!

--Diana

25 January 2004

Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays to all! And I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, too. [g]

Having at long last returned from the Book-Tour Wars, I'd like particularly to thank all of you who came to see me along the way--especially the six people who brought me dead fish. [g] That was very thoughtful! (and came in handy at a few of the later stops, too...). Many thanks also for the bath-salts, candles, chocolate, brandy, whisky, wine, coffee, etc. (I assume the coffee was intended to assist me in sobering up after the nightly hotel-room debauch presumably induced by indulgence in the other gifts. I feel very reluctant to tell you guys this, considering the generous impulses involved, but...er...I don't drink coffee. It makes me sick. But I certainly do appreciate the thought--and my husband drinks coffee, though he informs me that nobody drinks that much coffee.)

I'm still digging my way through the accumulated email, mail, and other debris--all the while, dragging more debris in through the front door every day, in the form of Christmas-trees, wreaths, corn-husks (for the tamales), poinsettias (and I wish to point out, just for the sake of principle, that that word is pronounced "poyn-SETT-ee-ah," and not "poyn-SET-a"--there's an "i" in it--right there, see it, second from the end?) in red, white, and pink, bags and bags and bags from Banana Republic, Gap, and Fossil (I have teenagers), and fifty-pound sacks of dog-food (I have dogs). So if you've written to me about anything lately...it might be a little while before I'm able to respond. But I do appreciate your letters very much, and will certainly try to answer them as quickly as I can. By Ground-Hog's Day, perhaps...of 2005...

Now, let's see...business questions. Yes, I'm still happy to provide signed bookplates, for anyone who wants them. A bookplate (in case you've never seen one before) is a small sticky label, inscribed to the book's owner (or anyone else, I suppose), and autographed. If one can't come to a book-signing and already owns a book (therefore not wanting to buy a new, autographed copy), one can get one of these little thingies and stick it in the book instead.

If you want one--or more--simply send me a stamped, self-addressed envelope (to mail the things back to you in), and a note telling me how you'd like them to be inscribed. (P.O. Box 584, Scottsdale, AZ 85252-0584) No, I don't charge anything for them; happy to do it.

(On the other hand, if you do want an autographed book, that's no trouble, either. Call or email The Poisoned Pen bookstore and tell 'em what you want; I go by there every few days and sign all their orders.)

Back to thanking you all... Thanks to all of you who have written to tell me how much you like Lord John!

As I say, I will try to catch up a bit with the email, but in the meantime, I've noticed a couple of recurrent questions regarding Lord John. The first--which is one to gladden any author's heart--is "When is the next Lord John book going to be available?"

Well, your guess is as good as mine at this point--though I am in fact working on the next Lord John book, now that I'm home, as well as the next big Outlander novel, and the first contemporary mystery.

I keep forgetting, though, to mention that in fact there is a new story about Lord John, due out next month (i.e., January--wait a minute...it is January. Well, this month, then), but there is.

This is a novella (which is either a long short-story or a short novel, depending how you want to look at it. It's 32,000 words, either way), entitled Lord John and the Succubus, which is included in a fantasy anthology: LEGENDS II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, edited by Robert Silverberg. Other authors included in this anthology are: Terry Brooks, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, and Anne McCaffrey. I have no idea what I'm doing in such august company, but I was flattered to be asked. [g] (The Poisoned Pen has autographed copies of this book available too--which is very nice of them, considering that they specialize in mystery, rather than fantasy.)

As for the first Lord John story--which really was a short story (no, really), titled Hellfire--people have kindly been asking about that, too. I was hoping to be able to include that story in the same volume with Lord John and the Private Matter, but the publisher wasn't able to arrange that in time; it may be possible to put it in the paperback edition. I hope so, since I really would like to get that story back into print one of these days.

Meanwhile, though, Recorded Books has done an audio version of Hellfire, as well as the audio version of Lord John and the Private Matter. These are both read by Mr. Jeffrey Woodman, who is great. I just adore the recordings done by Davina Porter, of the main Outlander novels, but these are every bit as wonderful, and I can't recommend them enough.

Anyway, I digress. Another recurrent question (well, two people have asked, so far) is:

Q: "Apparently Lord John's father was an Earl, since his mother is referred to as the Countess, and his brother is an Earl. But the title "Lord John" is one that would properly be used only by the younger son of a duke. Am I confused?"

A: Well, tactful of you to suggest that possibility, of course [g]. But no, you aren't confused. In terms of an answer, though, we have two possibilities:

1. I carelessly omitted to check whether I had got the right rank for Lord John's parents while writing the book, and neither I nor the assorted copy-editors noticed the error in time. OR...

2. There is actually a fiendishly clever explanation for this disparity, which forms the basis of the plot (or part of it) of the next book, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade.

I suppose we will just have to wait and see which of these alternatives is in fact correct. [cough] However, if you would like a bit more material in hand before placing your bet...I'm providing the beginning of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, (along with excerpts from A Breath of Snow and Ashes (the new Jamie and Claire book), and Red Ant's Head--see below) as a sort of holiday present to you all--for those of you who don't mind reading excerpts. Those of you who do will just have to settle for bookplates, I suppose.

****SPOILER ALERT ON****

And another Lord John question--don't read this one, if you haven't yet read the book, as it contains references to the plot!

Q: I enjoyed Lord John and the Private Matter, but did have an issue with Trevelyan telling Lord John "I should have made Olivia a good husband. She would have been quite happy and content." He seems to have no qualms about infecting his young wife with syphilis--this would make her "happy and content"?

A: No, of course not. He had contracted the betrothal with Olivia long before he discovered that he had syphilis. Those are the circumstances to which he and Lord John are referring; the original situation under which he had planned to marry Olivia--while carrying on his affair with Maria Mayrhofer. As Lord John observes (and as his mother also notes), it was quite common for a man in Trevelyan's social position to keep both wife and mistress--and provided he was discreet and considerate, the wife might indeed be "happy and content."

However, Trevelyan discovered his condition at the same time that Lord John made his inconvenient observation over the chamberpots, and immediately began to reassess his plans--consulting with Finbar Scanlon (who came up with his audacious plan of treatment), and plotting to remove Mayrhofer by involving him in the intrigue with Sergeant O'Connell. It's obvious that his intent from that point was no longer to marry Olivia, but rather to try to persuade Maria to run away with him, and attempt a cure for them both. So the possibility of infecting Olivia was not an issue.

****SPOILER ALERT OFF****

All right. Now that I'm home, Christmas is celebrated, and the tortoises have begun hibernating for the winter, I return to working full-time. I'm happy to report that I have three books on the boil at the moment--all three are talking to me, and I'm tapping happily away. As a sort of holiday present to you all, therefore, I'm posting three new excerpts with this update--one from each of the books in progress: [Note from Rosana - In order to keep track of the excerpts, I have given them names. These are not titles that Diana gave them.]

"Jezebel" from A Breath of Snow and Ashes

"Paulie" from Red Ant's Head

"Stepbrothers" from Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

In the interests of finishing one--or more!--of these books in the coming year, I'm trying Very Hard not to go anywhere during 2004. I do have a few small events scheduled (mostly local), which are listed on the "Tours and Appearances" page, but I'm not looking for more. Still, if you have some event on that you think I'd be a useful inclusion to, feel free to ask. [g]

New Methadone Suggestions

And in the meantime, do allow me to recommend four more excellent authors for your reading pleasure:

Martin Cruz Smith - This gentleman is a wonderful writer of both historical and contemporary (more or less) fiction. I say "more or less," because some of his best books are the mysteries starring Arkady Renko, set in the USSR, while it still was the USSR (though the last book, Havana Bay, takes place post-breakup). These include Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square. I love the Renko books, but would also recommend Rose (which takes place during the Industrial Revolution in England), and December 6, set during the days leading up to WWII in Imperial Japan.

Patricia Finney - I've already recommended the Robert Carey mysteries, which are written by this author under her pseudonym of P.F. Chisholm. Under her own name, though, she's written three marvelous Elizabethan novels--espionage thrillers, really: Firedrake's Eye, Unicorn's Blood, and now a new one in the trilogy, Gloriana's Torch. All of these are wonderful; detailed, suspenseful, intermittently hilarious and heartbreaking, and totally engrossing.

Jennifer Crusie - Crusie writes enormously funny comic romance novels. Much more thoroughly developed stories and characters than Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels (which are excellent in themselves), but equally hilarious.

(If you aren't primarily a reader of romances, though, you might want to check carefully the original date of publication on Ms. Crusie's books. Her more recent titles (Welcome to Temptation) are excellent stories with broad appeal. However, as with many authors whose later books "break out" into hardcover and find popularity beyond their original genre limits, the publisher has started re-releasing some of her earlier titles. This gives the illusion that the reader is getting a new book--while in fact, it's a book done ten or more years ago (e.g., Strange Bedpersons). These earlier books are fine, but they were written according to the limits of the genre as defined at the time, which means they may appear dated, or not up to the level of complexity and accomplishment of the later novels.)

And last, but by no means least...Kathleen Eschenberg is a writer of wonderful Civil War romances. Her first novel, The Nightengale's Song, is difficult to find, but her newest, Seen By Moonlight, has just been released. Her books are lyrically written, beautifully researched, and combine heart-wrenching drama with sophisticated plotting that takes realistic account of the historical complexities of the time.

*******

Un Prospero Ano y Felicidad to all of you! (to say nothing of a happy and felicitous Ground Hog's Day, which is when I plan to have all of the Christmas cards sent out...)

--Diana