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Magic or Madness is Almost a Book
I'm holding the Advance Uncorrected Proof of Magic or Madness in my hands. Okay, not actually in my hands at this very minute on account of typing—it's resting beside the keyboard looking very fetching indeed. My first novel to be published is in book form at last.
Well, sort of book form, this is the version that gets sent out to booksellers and reviewers and writers with big names who might potentially say nice things about the book that can be used as blurbs and stuck on the back to entice people into buying it. The real thing—the hard cover with dust jacket and embossing and the whole shebang won't be out till March.
But this Advance Uncorrected Proof—Not For Sale—is a mighty fine stopgap. It has the proper cover art—lovely, lovely cover art—my name's on the front, on the spine and on the copyright page, not to mention at the top of every left-hand page. I've never seen such a profusion of my name before. Strange. Disconcerting. Good.
The insides look pretty much how they'll look in the real book. Everyone likes the fonts; I like the fonts, especially the chapter titles. The little dingbats are gorgeous. The suns for the Sydney section are perfect; and the snowflakes for the New York City bits are beautiful, though they resemble a stylised Japanese fish floating on a wave more than any snowflake I've ever seen, but hey, my experience with snowflakes is limited; I didn't see snow for the first time until I was in my twenties. I am assured that come the real book they will look exactly like snowflakes. But I could live with the Japanese fish. I have a published novel.
This is a very big deal for me.
I started writing my first novel when I was five years old. I have no idea what it was about but I do remember spending considerable time trying to get the title right, though this had more to do with crayon colour than scansion.
My second effort came when I was eight or so, written for the delectation of my younger sister, chronicling the adventures of Silly Sausage Susan. It had several chapters, none of them longer than a page, and filled up almost half an exercise book. I was stunned by my own prolificness. I wrote a book! I can't remember much of the plot except that Silly Sausage Susan fell over a lot. I would act this out for Niki with appropriate sound effects (farting noises—I understood my four-year-old demographic). Niki thought it was hilarious.
Over the years I started many other novels, but saving the Silly Sausage Susan series (which I repudiated when I was twelve—too juvenile), I never finished one until 1999. Now I have written three, am well into my fourth and the first to be published is lying beside this keyboard smiling at me.
My first novel. At last.
New York City, 26 July 2004
© 2004 Justine Larbalestier
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