Monday, May 16, 2005

Trot of Oz

My diary writing stumbled to a stop. I wrote only once more that summer, tried to cram everything into that entry, got tired, but promised I’d finish the next day. The next day didn’t come for two years.

In that last 1982 diary entry I mention Trot of Oz, which was an Oz book Eric Shanower and I had decided to write together. I was to produce the first chapter, Eric would write the second, and so on to twelve chapters.

It took a few years, but we did finish Trot. Eric even published it in his OzStory magazine.

If you want to read my first chapter, it’s online.

When we finished the book I thought it turned out pretty good. Later I soured on it, convinced it needed a major overhaul before I could allow anyone to see it. Eventually Eric prevailed upon me to reread the thing and I decided, yeah, it was fun and I didn’t need to be so fussy. In fact I’m up for another one. Eric suggested Polychrome in Oz (Polychrome is the Rainbow’s daughter, or one of them anyway, and appeared a few times in Baum’s Oz books).

Having just done a web search I see a Nate Barlow has produced a book (unpublished?) called Polychrome in Oz. I don’t know anything about it.

Well. Titles aren’t that hard to come by. What say you, Eric?

5 comments:

David Lee Ingersoll said...

I'd be really surprised if any of the characters from Baum's books were without a published to book to their names. The major characters anyway. There's probably no Musiker in Oz. It seemed like most of the people on the Ozzy Digest had a book in them. Someone there was apparently working on "The Rainbow's Daughter in Oz". No google mention that it saw print.

Glenn Ingersoll said...

I was thinking about writing The Living Phonograph of Oz. I haven't gotten around to it yet. Wild Nights first.

David Lee Ingersoll said...

I always felt sorry for that poor unloved thing. The Musiker too actually. I have a soft spot in my heart for unintentionally annoying characters. Probably why I love Paliki.

Wait, she's not fictional.

Rummy said...

If I were trying to tackle the post-Baum books I'd go crazy. I have to do things in order, can't skip around or omit a missing book. I was going to read the Doctor Dolittle books and was half-way there only to be stopped in my tracks since the library didn't have a copy of Doctor Dolittle on the Moon.

Glenn Ingersoll said...

Totally! I held off a long time (for a kid) on reading the two post-Baum Oz books that I was able to locate before I discovered the Oz club. If it'd been possible to read the entire series in order I certainly would have. But I finally gave up on that and allowed myself to read what was available. 1982 was probably the last time I read many of these books. I'm considering (!) starting again from the beginning and doing the whole "official 40". Surely I can read much faster now? ... Um ... But this is a plan that ain't going into action real soon. I guess I have to read Wicked first.