I'm sitting in the international terminal at Tullamarine waiting to check into my flight. I have not yet slept and because of a stuff up I won't get a chance until to sleep until I get home tonight at nearly midnight.

Good thing I have my iPad to play with.

Did I mention I bought an iPad?

Most productive thing I've done all week: Got the word count to109, 046 so far today. Should hit 110K before afternoon tea.

My good deed for the week: Emergency dash into Christchurch to bring home a friend who got stranded there after her son was medivaced by helicopter to hospital after breaking his leg in two places on a skateboard at the local skatebowl.

Most fun thing I've done all week: Feeding poddy lambs with a bottle.

Most stupid thing I've done all week: Lost my ATM card.

Still left to do this week: Hit the 115K word mark by Sunday if it kills me... which it won't because the story is rollicking along.

So... how's your week been?

 

 

First thing I had to do this morning was reload the operating system on the Tablet PC, which apparently forgot it owned one.

Curses on you, Blue Screen of Death!

Or worse, the deaded black screen with the message "Operating System Missing".

Anyway, it's all fixed now (or I wouldn't be blogging) so in honour of my dilemma, I give you this, which should make all you geeks out there smile...

I've had a run of emails lately from readers who have requested, in the nicest way possible way, that I go back and write sequels to both the Tide Lords and the Demon Child series, not so much becasue they want more, but because they don't like the endings.

In short, they'd like a sequel that will redress the mistakes I obviously made by either not finishing the book in the way they liked, or by not having characters they believed should hook up, hooking up, and that a sequel will give me an opportunity to set the record straight.

I am bemused by these requests. I often wonder what goes through the mind of the reader who sits down to compose such a letter.

Does their internal dialogue go something like this?

"Gee, Jennifer Fallon really got it wrong, here. Perhaps I should point that out to her. Perhaps, if I mention to her that I would rather have an ending where [insert preferred ending] happens. Maybe she never considered this, although I can't imagine why, because clearly that's how it should have gone down. I've read the whole series now, so I'm pretty much the expert here.

"I know, I'll email her! Once she realises how badly she's screwed up, she will contact the publishers, (who must not have noticed how wrong she got it, or they would never have allowed this ending to go to print) and inform them that she's writing a sequel to fix the problem.

They'll be thrilled, of course, despite the fact that they have their publishing schedules mapped out for the next two years, and have already contracted Jennifer to write a completely new series. I'm sure her agent will be able to negotiate a suitable deal. After all, the fans (me) are demanding it! And I'm pretty certain all the other fan mail she gets says the same thing, she's just ignoring them because... well, I don't know why she hasn't done anything about this yet. Perhaps my email will be the one that gets her off her ass .

"Oh... I'm not sure what else ought to happen in this book of, say... 180,000 words. That's Jennifer's problem. She's the author, after all. It's her world and her characters so I'll let her figure it out. Just so long as it ends the way I want it to."

Yup... I figure that's how it goes.

So I am going to drop everything, and write a sequel to both series which ends the way these fans want them to...

Only problem I have, is that I have about 10 emails offering about 10 different endings.

Oh no! Which one is right?

Here's a wild suggestion... maybe the one I wrote in the first place that passed the scrutiny of my agents, multiple editors around the world and the several hundred thousand people who read the book and don't think I need to change a thing.

Just a thought:)

On the upside, I think, as authors go, I'm probably lucky. I think Trudi Canavan's "how dare you end your Black Magician series like that?" emails run into the thousands...LOL

I've turned into a true Kiwi. Tonight I am lamb sitting a very sick little day old ram with fluid on the lungs and possibly a deformed spine. Not sure he's going to make it through the night.

Secondborn is taking him in to the clinic tomorrow to xray him to see if the spine is congenital or if he's just walking funny 'cause his mum rejected him and he'd dehydrated.

Poor little thing. He's so cute with the most awesome markings. Hope he makes it.