Is this sacrilegious?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Donkey's years ago in the eighties I wrote to AF asking if there was going to be another book to follow Run Away Home. She answered very nicely to say yes there was one in progress so I waited . . . and waited . . . but then got fed up waiting and wrote my own sequel. Then I wrote to AF again asking if she'd like to see it. She didn't - can't say I blame her - but she didn't seem to mind either.

Is there an audience out there who'd like to read my poor offering? 'Tis but a shadow of the real thing but I sense a thirst for anything going. Or is it just too cringemakingly sacrilegious? What would the Marlows think - would they like another airing or would they prefer to be laid gently to rest?

Comments

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I would definitely like to see it - there's a huge shortage of fanfic for AF as far as I can see (although it's possible I'm not in the right places, and I'd love to be wrong about it). Especially with so few books, and no sign of the suspected sequel, it would be lovely to read your thoughts on what might have been.

[owl]

Were you writing a Marlowfic, or was it someone else? And what's your icon of? It looks like it could be Kingscote scarlet.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It's the reprint wrapper of End of Term</>, where they're in...brown. For no real reason.

I was trying to write an alternative sequel to Cricket Term where Lawrie doesn't get the Prosser and Nick goes to Colebrige Grammar for nano, but I got bogged down in other things and never finished it - I don't find writing very easy. I will probably keeptrying intermittantly, but it's not very good!

[owl]

So that's why there's a pervasive blueness about the icon? Who's it supposed to be, d'you think?

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

It's Nick, carrying Sprog. She's wearing a falconers' glove.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read it!

[lyras.livejournal.com]

Go for it, I say!

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Oh, God yes! Sacrilege or no sacrilege, I'm game for more Marlows any day...

[owl]

Oh, yes, yes, post it! Sacrilege, you say? You should see some of the stuff perpetrated in the Harry Potter fandom....

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see it!

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely!

Do I remember reading somewhere about AF's literary executor finding no trace of the Mythical Sequel's manuscript and concluding it had been destroyed when AF realised she'd never finish it? Or was that just a horrible nightmare?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Sadly not a horrible nightmare - no trace, as far as I know. It's enough to make you weep, m'dear.

[coughingbear]

I'm afraid that's true (acc. to friend of literary executor). But they did find various cancelled scenes from Run Away Home.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

If only she'd done a Virgil and left it to her friends to destroy it after her death...

Is there any chance they'll be published, do you know?

[coughingbear]

They'll be available/discussed at the Forest conference in June, and I think there is a plan to publish them along with some papers from the conference afterwards. So I hope so! (Of course, I have no idea what the snippets are like.)

[owl]

How sad!

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Is this TRUE? How awful - I was counting on something emerging...

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Oh, me too, at least enough to show how she was planning on tying up all those loose ends. But other commenters are saying it's sad but true.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Definitely, get it out there.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes! Show us!

[australienne.livejournal.com]

I know I'd love to read it too - chalk me up as another who spent the last decade waiting with increasingly less hope for AF to produce the sequel.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Publish and be damned. Or not damned... but I'd love to see it.

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

Count me in too - I'd love to read it.

AF told me in a letter she had plans for the book after RAH to be set partly at home and partly at school, and for the book after that - I was optimistic for a long time, and even then I had hopes there would be a cache of unpublished stuff after she died. I read somewhere that one thing she wanted to do was the Marlows on holiday in the Scottish Highlands so I do vaguely think of attempting a fanfic along those lines one day.

[chaletian.livejournal.com]

I think I heard (possibly actually from Sue Sims) that AF destroyed the manuscript when she realised it wasn't up to snuff.

But yes! Bring on the fanfic!

[(Anonymous)]

ca juste.
I would like to see. Go for it.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

Me too

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Having read Ankaret's brilliant story am feeling a bit bashful about mine which is much more scrappily written really to answer questions I wanted answered such as what happened between Esther and Nicola, Peter's Navy career, Rowan's real feelings about farming, how Jan Scott copes in the real world etc.
But in spite of misgivings I am typing up the first chapter (the whole thing's in longhand) and will post it when I've worked out how to, which will probably take longer than the typing bit.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I am so glad it's on its way, and particularly anxious for the Nick and Esther bit! Are you going to post it to your LJ or a fanfic site or somewhere else?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Would love some advice. All I know is I'm typing it into a Microsoft Office Word Document . . .

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Well, I started a fic journal with the expectation that about two people I knew in real life who also liked the AF books would read it and that it seemed a bit unfair on the rest of my friends list to burden them with it on my proper journal. Then readers started showing up - I have no real idea where from - so I carried on posting it there.

I'd had a bit of a look at Harry Potter archives because of the first two fics being Harry Potter crossovers, but none of them seemed particularly crossover-appropriate and the only HP crossover community I could find on LJ had 'please do not apply to join' (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=hp_crossovers) in its user info.

If I could find a Forest - or generally girlsown, actually - fic archive I would fall on it like a starved thing, but I haven't seen one yet.

dsr

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Yes, post it. I've read the first chapter, and need to read more. I've waited 25 years to find out whether Nicola and Ginty ever spoke to each other again!