I Don't Know Where the Book Is

[damselfish]

I got a random tweet a few nights ago praising Socorro! Who praised me in the same breath as Amal El-Mohtar! /swoon

They asked where's the book. Total strangers also want to know if there will be a novel. Is this normal with short stories? I was asked if I had plans to write the continuing adventures of Consuelo and Aurelie for Amphitrite but no one really went "I neeeeeed the book!" Whereas the majority of people who've laid eyes on Socorro ask me if I plan to write a book.

The irony of my life is that people want the novel version of short stories I completed and never thought of again, but almost no one has asked for more insight into the worlds where I feel like there's room for expansion. I don't know anything more about Pilar and Socorro--did they make it to Esperanza or New Amsterdam? Did they die? Did they live? Did they live happily ever after? Did Prudencia ever learn to love again? Did Confianza collect her fleet and dump her captain in favor of starting a creche that founded a civilization free-lovin' spaceship babies? Did Soledad turn into a lesbian spaceship commune?

I don't know.

These were questions outside my consideration when I wrote it. I love, love, LOVE that people ask and if it was a novel world I could answer--but Socorro came to me in the form it did and everything else was irrelevant. It was a little peek through a pinhole into these characters' lives. I usually have more, but them? Nada.

Then again, part of me goes "...maybe you could write the book. At least for internet publication for everyone who wants to know." Because I don't know if it sells on its own merits. I mean even if I did sell it as "internet dating for spaceships" most people just go "oh! Like Anne McCaffrey?" and I'm like, NO IT'S NOTHING LIKE THAT.

...Everyone knows the best brainship book was the one she wrote with Mercedes Lackey. I mean, gosh.