The Fall of the House of Vespa

The little wasp in the bookshelf remains inoffensive (it came back and filled up another couple of bracket-holes) but I finally had to do something terminal to the yellowjacket nest under the holly tree.

Nobody had or has been stung so far, but today lunchtime was a near thing. Diane was at the Post Office, I'd gone off for another ride on the bike and when I came back, found that our gardener had arrived. Since the sky was threatening to finally let go with the rain we've all been hoping for – didn't happen, of course – we hadn't expected him, and I was just, just! (in terms of about 20 seconds) in time to stop him running a strimmer over the bank beneath which the wasps are nesting. This would have vexed them, and when wasps get vexed, they're not slow to let everyone in the vicinity know about it. The gardener, me, all four cats (who of course were doing their cat thing of lounging around watching the human work...)

It was a narrow Squeak (also a narrow Beemer, Goodman and Pip.) And though Ireland isn’t as automatically litigious as some countries, I fancy the gardener, or his lawyer, might have had grounds to make expensive noises about my having known about the nest but neither removed it or put up some sort of warning sign.

So I waited until well after dark, got a torch and a can of fly-and-wasp-killer, sneaked up on the hole in the bank and let them have it. Here's some useful information, courtesy of some pest-control sites sourced through Google: wasps, apparently, will fly down the beam of a torch and sting whatever they find at the source. Bearing this in mind, I shone the torch just long enough to make sure of my aim, then switched it off and emptied half the can of fly-killer point-blank into the entrance. After that, I got the hell out of Dodge.

About twenty minutes later I checked on what was happening, and the satisfactory answer was: nothing. All Quiet on the Wasp Front. There was a further ten minutes with the garden hose running full-blast down the hole to (I hope) destroy the nest, and then I packed it in for the night. I'll check during daylight hours tomorrow, but with luck I'll be able to sound the all-clear.

I just wish getting rid of the cleg-flies was as simple. I hate those buggers...

Rank, Style and most especially, Title

When I mentioned I was working on a novel set in Restoration England, handworn asked "What's it to be called?", and I replied: "The working title is Blood's Ruby, and most of the characters (or at least, most of their names) are based on real historical people. Hmm. Interesting thought... I'll get back to that."

The first part of that interesting thought is the realisation, after a bit, that though working titles are frequently no more than a hook to hang the plot on, I've actually been quite lucky: every novel I've written (except one) has gone to press as what I was calling it during the creative phase.

Compare that to Diane's first "Cat Wizards" book, which was (and still is, so far as we're concerned) always known as The Cats of Grand Central. Mick Posen's terrific (British edition) cover emphasised the connection between characters and location, besides getting the look of the cats just right - he went so far as requesting photos of our lot, and anyone who met the late-lamented Kasha can see how well he caught her "Oh my God have you seen the VISA bill?" expression. However, because the editor didn't like it (though I can't recall why, which suggests her reason(s) didn't convince me; clarity would have stuck in my mind) the title was changed to The Book of Night With Moon. Although said book plays a central role in D's wizard novels, it doesn't explain why there are all those cats on the cover, or why (for those who recognise it) the Hermes-topped clock that stands above the main door of New York's Grand Central Station is in the background.

Next book in the series was, or should have been A Paw-print on the Moon; however that title was changed not once but twice, becoming On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service in the UK ("clunky", I thought then and "clunky", I still think now) and To Visit The Queen in the US. (A bit better, since the little rhyme "Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been...?" appears in the preamble, and HM Queen Victoria appears in the text.)

So the working title for the first "Colonel Blood" book is Blood's Ruby; and although I've thought "Lord alone knows what'll be on the cover when/if it gets bought and published", I'm likely to insist that it stays Blood's Ruby, unless I'm given very, very good reasons to the contrary.

Better reasons than the last (and so far only) time, anyway.

I still haven't forgotten or forgiven that silliness with The Warlord's Domain. Diane's title-changes were a somewhat incomprehensible nonsense. My title-change cost me money and sales (granted, probably not much of either, but it's the principal of the thing.) When the three preceding books in a series have titles like The (insert noun: Horse, Demon, Dragon) Lord, it's possible to assume, without any great leap of logic, that the author didn't call the fourth one The (insert noun: War) Lord just by accident. Being told that "Tony (the MD) thinks there are too many fantasy books out there with Lord in the title" is one thing, and presumably based on some element of market research; but I'd expected the altered title to be something considerably different.

Not (well, gosh!) The Warlord's Domain...

Consequence: some people still think there were only three Aldric books, the Japanese and Italian publishers were so certain of it that they didn't buy Domain at all, and I get the occasional plaintive email asking "why was there only one book in the Domain series?" (though that's just plain old lack of observation.)

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover – or make assumptions about the title, either!