posted on 25 May 2009 08:20
by
Peter Stockwell
More Horse Painters.
The Horsepainters cover is finished and looks very good. We overcome the Ice Age copyright problem, so could reproduce a 35,000 year old painting without getting into trouble with the Trustees of the estate of the artist. I have been trying to get authors of similar books to say nice things about The Horsepainters for publicity purposes. Not easy - they are protected by Agents and Publishers from begging letters. So far I have had two hits out of about ten tries. These are people who have agreed to look at my book and may still not like it when they do. Of course the less important people are the more likely it is they will help. So the most helpful are the least useful. Catch 22 says it all.
I was going to write to Jean M Auel of The Clan of the Cave Bear fame. Then I found out she was 76 years old and had probably retired. Her book was so famous I thought she might think The Horsepainters useless anyway. I decided to read it to learn how to write prehistorical novels. Sadly I didn't get past the first few chapters as it was so badly written and cliche rich. Jean M Auel is of the Hammond Innes school of writing. But they do give the public what it wants.
I have just rediscovered Amy Tan. I'll keep you posted. She's good.