JanerBlog

News Allsorts.

Sorry for the radio silence over the last couple days. I fully intended to have posted the pictures from Vault of Midnight by now, but things just got in my way... twelve boxes of books, and several pieces of heavy furniture, to be specific.

Long story short, I inherited my Great-Great-Grandfather's library, or what was left of it after the carrion crows picked it over. There's an extraordinary amount of good stuff in there, and I'm taking the time and bother not only to sort the books into keep, offer-to-family and give-to-special-people piles, but to catalogue each one in an Excel sheet so that I'll know what I had and where it went. I'm only keeping the books I'm actually liable to read, or those that're just too cool to let go -- the library's unity has already been sundered, so there's no sense in standing on principle and trying to keep the whole thing together just to say it's together. As awesome and ancient as these books are, I believe it's far better to have them in the hands of people who will want them, rather than in boxes in my attic: our house is configured in funny ways; it's all hallways and doorways and windows and arches, and what few solid walls we have are taken up with furniture -- in other words, there's not a lot of room for bookshelves. I'm already culling my paperbacks to make room for the new kids.

Yes, Alem. I'll post the book porn soon, I promise. ;)

So there's some other big news. It's going to disappoint some of you and make others of you very happy. Still, there's not much I can do about it; the muse has spoken, and this time, she's using a megaphone.

The next book I publish will not be a Vögelein book. You heard it here first. Instead, it will be this new project that hit me like a thunderclap last week. I've pitched it to several people whose tastes I trust, and every single one of them has responded with sentiments along the lines of "When can I buy this book?"

I'm keeping the subject matter under wraps until I can get enough pages banged together to release a good-looking website for it. The subject matter's fertile enough, and I'm a slow enough artist, that someone might beat me to the punch. In this business, it's not about "stolen ideas" -- it's about synchronous creation, and who can race their concepts to the finish line ahead of the pack. So I'm tyin' on my running shoes this week and seeing how far I can get. (Which is another reason I'm not saying too much about it yet -- who knows, as good as the idea seems now, once I put it under the thumbscrews, it may fall apart as well. But right now, I'm feeling pretty sure about it. How sure? Enough that if it pans out it could be the focus of the next five years of my artistic life. Now there's a heady prospect.)

I'm pretty sure it'll be released in its entirety on the web.

I'm also pretty sure I'll be at work on the art before the end of the year.

I'm also also pretty sure it'll be in duotone.

Vogelein's at a good stopping point right now: two books out, favorable reviews, and she's off to a bright new future at the end of the second story. She can fly in a holding pattern for a while until I get her next story figured out. In fact, that's part of the rationale for persuing this new idea... I'm hoping that while my conscious is distracted with a meaty new idea, my subconscious will start nibbling away at the problems of the current Vogelein script or rather, the distinct lack thereof. I've banged my head against it for most of the summer to no avail. I've read literal dozens of books -- and the subject matter just isn't speaking to me yet. I've got to let it sit and percolate for a while. The characters aren't going away, or leaving, or being put to bed -- they're just going on hiatus.

And also -- I've been making Vogelein for ten years now. Ten years is a long damn time, and I'm ready for a change of pace. Of course, when you finally see the concept, you'll probably be like, "Silly Jane! That's just the same thing you were doing all along!" But -- it *is* different, in important ways. You'll see.

So there you have it. News Allsorts. Kind of like Liquorice Allsorts, only my news didn't have any coconut in it.