Posts by Jolisa
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Giovanni, we miss you in this thread! But it will still be here when your hands are free.
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To the point, though. If we don't mind "found poetry," is it time for "found novels"??
In which case it suddenly got way easier to write one. Back in half an hour with my first draft.
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Going through the Motions...
Oh, that is a spectacularly crappy pun!
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(You DID mean it literally, didn't you?)
Yep, quaint it may be, but when I sit down to write fiction, no matter how thoroughly researched, I clear the desk(top) and write on a virtual or literal blank page. Other fiction writers of my acquaintance do the same on principle.
I try to write my academic prose the same way, inserting quotations from other sources as needed and compulsively footnoting each one before I move on.
Terribly old-fashioned, I know, but it works for me. Other influences and phrases hover in the ether, of course, but I strive to remove all physical temptation to cut and paste.
Luckily I usually find myself so involved in the work that I quite forget to worry about "modern thought about originality, influence, determinism, nature v. nurture, subjectivity v. objectivity and so on."
That I save for when I'm doing the dishes.
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Actually, what Jolisa said on the radio was that (from memory, hope I'm not being misleading) is that she talked to other historical writers and they said no, what you do is do your reading, and then make sure those texts are off your desk before you start writing, specifically so you don't use the exact same words, but put them in your own.
Excellent rendition, Emma - that's pretty much it. That's what the good ones who have a horror of inadvertently plagiarising other people's work do, anyway.
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Oh wait. It is.
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Suddenly fantasizing about setting up a protection racket... Publishers would send me their manuscripts well in advance of publication, and, for a certain consideration, I would spot the dodgy bits and suggest corrections, thus sparing everyone embarrassment and ensuring a greater chance of a decent review.
Sigh. If only that were an actual job.
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Never apologise for rhyming. It's old 'cos it's gold. Rhymes are great!
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Could appreciation of this book by one not culturally attuned to the politics at play sway your mother's taste Jolisa?
Sorry, what? Got distracted by your swingin' internal rhyme (play/sway, hey hey hey) and had a bit of trouble parsing that sentence.
You mean, if someone else truly madly loved the book despite the fact that chunks of it are plagiarised, would she take that recommendation and sit down and read it? Perhaps, but at this point, probably not, given the premium she places on the author's own skill and artistry at evoking a bygone world. Too many books, too little time. But I'll let her speak for herself on this one.
In any case, the review by Nicholas Reid -- which I'm pretty sure went to press before the Listener story broke -- considers the novel on its own merits, with no involvement of the "politics at play," whatever you meant by that last phrase. And, just reading between the lines here, it doesn't sound as though he'll be buying it for his Mum for Christmas.
Still, it will be interesting to see if the palaver affects sales positively or negatively. It really could go either way.
Also, Mark, I was thinking about your earlier point about footnotes outweighing original material - omg, the creative event horizon!! It's an interesting perspective.
But I'm not nearly as pessimistic as you seem to be. I reckon we'll continue generating fresh content for millennia to come. Ideas are plentiful, and new combinations thereof even more so. Leave them alone, and they will come home, wagging their footnotes behind them.
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I quite like the idea of remixes and mash-ups of written works.
Pastiche. We loves it. When done well, it's a beautiful thing.
As I re-read The Trowenna Sea over the last few days, I was thinking that there's definitely a place for a mash-up novel deliberately and explicitly composed entirely of juicy extracts from 19th C New Zealand fiction and non-fiction. It could be absolutely rollicking.
This, alas, is not that novel.