I wonder if you were tidying it up, Lissa? I am feeling the pull to do the same at this time of year. It touches my heart to see the little bits of Small Meadow Press here and there. xo
Lesley, you would laugh to see how much Small Meadow suffuses that space! This is a new workspace for me—we managed to squeeze a small desk between the bed and bookcase. I haven’t had a desk in a long time and I’m tickled pink. I’ve spent the week arranging my corner. 🙂 On the shelf below those dolls is a box with my Small Meadow hoard–my last notecards and tidbits. Under the desk is one of your Pigeon Holes holding some of the Good Paper you sent…the Coccoina paste I learned about from you, of course…and on the wall above the things you see here are several other Small Meadow cards and clippings. That beautiful envelope book under the stamps lives on my shelf, too…you sent it after Rilla was born, tucked full of sweet treasures. Now it holds stamps and other small things. And that’s just this one small nook!
The drawing in the second photo, btw, is my birthday present from Beanie—a portrait of me! 🙂
Spotted a couple of the unabridged versions of your Little House books. It’s great that your kids will be able to enjoy the full stories for themselves. Though this does make me wonder: if you had continued writing the Martha and Charlotte Years, would HarperCollins have abridged those further books before their first publication, or let them remain unabridged for some time?
They would have asked for the remaining books to be shorter from the outset. I was midway through the writing of book #5 (still floating around on a hard drive somewhere!) when the change of direction occurred. I’d have had to rewrite/condense that book to meet the new page count criteria (which is fine; rewrites are a part of the job) 🙂 and write short novels for the remainder of the two series. So there would only have been one version of each of those, but they’d have been much more slender stories than originally planned.
That is unfortunate, although I did notice that the Charlotte stories were shorter than the Martha ones anyway. So the books would still have had the same ‘heart’ as the previous ones, but for all of us fans the differences in length/range of the stories would have been quite glaring. Would it be possible for you to share those drafts of book #5, or is that technically the property/prerogative of HarperCollins?
Amy says:
Love it!
On December 29, 2013 at 4:13 am
Jennifer says:
So you. Love.
On December 29, 2013 at 4:45 am
lesley austin says:
I wonder if you were tidying it up, Lissa? I am feeling the pull to do the same at this time of year. It touches my heart to see the little bits of Small Meadow Press here and there. xo
On December 29, 2013 at 7:28 am
Melissa Wiley says:
Lesley, you would laugh to see how much Small Meadow suffuses that space! This is a new workspace for me—we managed to squeeze a small desk between the bed and bookcase. I haven’t had a desk in a long time and I’m tickled pink. I’ve spent the week arranging my corner. 🙂 On the shelf below those dolls is a box with my Small Meadow hoard–my last notecards and tidbits. Under the desk is one of your Pigeon Holes holding some of the Good Paper you sent…the Coccoina paste I learned about from you, of course…and on the wall above the things you see here are several other Small Meadow cards and clippings. That beautiful envelope book under the stamps lives on my shelf, too…you sent it after Rilla was born, tucked full of sweet treasures. Now it holds stamps and other small things. And that’s just this one small nook!
The drawing in the second photo, btw, is my birthday present from Beanie—a portrait of me! 🙂
On December 29, 2013 at 8:52 am
Hannah says:
Spotted a couple of the unabridged versions of your Little House books. It’s great that your kids will be able to enjoy the full stories for themselves. Though this does make me wonder: if you had continued writing the Martha and Charlotte Years, would HarperCollins have abridged those further books before their first publication, or let them remain unabridged for some time?
On January 2, 2014 at 6:47 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
They would have asked for the remaining books to be shorter from the outset. I was midway through the writing of book #5 (still floating around on a hard drive somewhere!) when the change of direction occurred. I’d have had to rewrite/condense that book to meet the new page count criteria (which is fine; rewrites are a part of the job) 🙂 and write short novels for the remainder of the two series. So there would only have been one version of each of those, but they’d have been much more slender stories than originally planned.
On January 2, 2014 at 7:03 pm
Hannah says:
That is unfortunate, although I did notice that the Charlotte stories were shorter than the Martha ones anyway. So the books would still have had the same ‘heart’ as the previous ones, but for all of us fans the differences in length/range of the stories would have been quite glaring. Would it be possible for you to share those drafts of book #5, or is that technically the property/prerogative of HarperCollins?
On January 2, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Hannah says:
Also, I’m guessing that the fifth books would’ve lacked illustrations from the outset?
On January 2, 2014 at 7:40 pm