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This clause is in my new book contract:
"The Works shall not contain any recipe, formula, suggestion or advice which if followed has the potential to cause harm..."
Oh dear. I immediately cut out the "charm of powerful trouble recipe", you know, the one on page 234, the bit about boiling and baking the "Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing..." After all, even if readers aren't crazy enough to drink it, we all know how badly things went wrong when someone dabbled with that mixture, right? And nowadays we have to worry about bird flu, SARS, salmonella and rabies as well. OK, toss that bit.
But what on earth am I going to do with that description of teaching the lad how to fight with a sword on p.93? Or the battle description on p.450. Loads of advice with the potential to cause harm there. You know, stuff along the lines of: "Lop off the dastardly knave's head, you fool!"
I do so love lawyer lingo.
About Me
- Glenda Larke
- Malaysia
- My life has been described by one of my editors as “impossibly exotic” – although really it is not my life, but me, that’s the exotic. I’m the uprooted plant, the exotic who doesn’t belong, always living in someone else’s backyard...
An Australian living in Malaysia. Writer, traveler, environmentalist. Author of The Isles of Glory trilogy (The Aware, Gilfeather, The Tainted); The Mirage Makers trilogy (Heart of the Mirage, The Shadow of Tyr, Song of the Shiver Barrens) and, writing as Glenda Noramly, a stand-alone book Havenstar. The latest trilogy is called The Watergivers in Australia and the Stormlord trilogy elsewhere: THE LAST STORMLORD, STORMLORD RISING, STORMLORD'S EXILE
Havenstar
You can buy my first published book (now out of print) as an eBook for your kindle, most ereaders, iPad etc.
CLICK ON THE COVER for the link to buy.
4 comments:
HUH?! How absurd. Did you sign it like that? Was the contract written by someone who'd never read a book (or who doesn't understand the concept of fiction)???
;-)
Would today's legal boffins reject Shakespeare's Macbeth because of the witches' brew?
The way things are going, fictional assailants will have to arm themselves with feather dusters!
Okay. That's just bloody wierd!!!!
I have signed it, yes. I think in this particular trilogy there's not much advice or any recipes that involve mayhem unless you happen to possess magic...
Love the idea of a feather-duster-wielding villain!
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