Welcome to the shadowy and not-so-shadowy space behind Sally's
books. That's Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist
and reader. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but
these are the relevant ones for now.)
The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the
background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about,
and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an
aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you
might find this fun. This preamble will be pasted to the top of each post, so
feel free to skip it in future.
The
books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and
pictures, where they exist.
The Astounding Sound (Post 26)
The Astounding Sound (1994) is a follow-up to Post 11, The Incredible Smell. It again stars Fritz, the long-nosed dog having a hapless adventure in Platypus Street. Instead of the smell from the first book, Fritz this time is responsible for a loud and sinister sound as he tears along the street howling into the bucket that has hitched itself behind his ears.
Second books in a series often don't have the more elaborate how-they-came-to-be stories behind them, simply because they're often thought up deliberately. I did consider having Fritz involved with Smell, Sight, Sound, Taste and Touch, but when you come to think about it, the other three senses don't work very well in this context (though I could have done a sloppy tongue scaring someone's ankles) so this was Fritz's final outing (well, so far!) Fritz's mad dash down the street was inspired in part by something that happened when I was young. We were bucket-feeding dairy calves and one of them (you guessed it) butted the inside of the bucket so hard in his pursuit of milk that he knocked the handle down... behind his ears. His flight wasn't as dramatic as Fritz's, but there it was, lodged in my memory when I needed a mechanism for Fritz's astounding sound. For some reason the cover picture I have here is black and white. If I find a colour one I'll make the substitution.
Second books in a series often don't have the more elaborate how-they-came-to-be stories behind them, simply because they're often thought up deliberately. I did consider having Fritz involved with Smell, Sight, Sound, Taste and Touch, but when you come to think about it, the other three senses don't work very well in this context (though I could have done a sloppy tongue scaring someone's ankles) so this was Fritz's final outing (well, so far!) Fritz's mad dash down the street was inspired in part by something that happened when I was young. We were bucket-feeding dairy calves and one of them (you guessed it) butted the inside of the bucket so hard in his pursuit of milk that he knocked the handle down... behind his ears. His flight wasn't as dramatic as Fritz's, but there it was, lodged in my memory when I needed a mechanism for Fritz's astounding sound. For some reason the cover picture I have here is black and white. If I find a colour one I'll make the substitution.
Another interesting look into a book, I'm loving these, Sally!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're having fun:-)
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