Ellen Kushner's LJ (RSS Feed)
01-04-2008, 06:40 PM
I put myself through Novelists' School (i.e. while I was trying to figure out how to turn an incohate mass of text into Swordspoint) in part by writing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, starting at 2000 bucks a pop (which, considering it took me about 2 weeks to write them, was very good money - but considering I was the world's worst procrastinator and took weeks to finally sit down and begin, kept me sadly on the edge). My very first one was Outlaws of Sherwood Forest, which I wrote on the theory that kids would want to read about the sorts of adventures I wished I could have had when I was a kid - or at least, that writing such adventures would be fun for me. (Interestingly, my initial proposal was for one about Little Women - hey! fun with Jo March! Mischief with Amy! - but they said the books had to appeal equally to boys and girls. So I turned to Robin Hood.)
You're all grown up now, you CYOA readers. Heck; you might even be parents yourselves. How time does fly. I remember when I was visiting your classrooms ("They'll pay my way?! to fly all over the place and have a fuss made over me as an author?!") to talk about writing ("But kids," I wanted to say, "you do understand these aren't real books...?), being the Cool Grownup in my leather jacket and bright blue 80s boots with the studs on them. . . .
One of you recently wrote me, though, to tell me about this (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/history/courses/Robin_Hood_Pathway.php) - I wouldn't have believed it til I'd seen it with my own eyes, I can tell you. A program in Robin Hood Studies at The University of Nottingham. What will they think of next?
Sounds like an awesome program - but just make sure you've got, as it were, another string to your bow.
(Original Post) (http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/146831.html)
You're all grown up now, you CYOA readers. Heck; you might even be parents yourselves. How time does fly. I remember when I was visiting your classrooms ("They'll pay my way?! to fly all over the place and have a fuss made over me as an author?!") to talk about writing ("But kids," I wanted to say, "you do understand these aren't real books...?), being the Cool Grownup in my leather jacket and bright blue 80s boots with the studs on them. . . .
One of you recently wrote me, though, to tell me about this (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/history/courses/Robin_Hood_Pathway.php) - I wouldn't have believed it til I'd seen it with my own eyes, I can tell you. A program in Robin Hood Studies at The University of Nottingham. What will they think of next?
Sounds like an awesome program - but just make sure you've got, as it were, another string to your bow.
(Original Post) (http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/146831.html)