Robin Hood Studies

[ellenkushner]

I put myself through Novelists' School (i.e. while I was trying to figure out how to turn an incohate mass of text into Swordspoint) in part by writing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, starting at 2000 bucks a pop (which, considering it took me about 2 weeks to write them, was very good money - but considering I was the world's worst procrastinator and took weeks to finally sit down and begin, kept me sadly on the edge). My very first one was Outlaws of Sherwood Forest, which I wrote on the theory that kids would want to read about the sorts of adventures I wished I could have had when I was a kid - or at least, that writing such adventures would be fun for me. (Interestingly, my initial proposal was for one about Little Women - hey! fun with Jo March! Mischief with Amy! - but they said the books had to appeal equally to boys and girls. So I turned to Robin Hood.)

You're all grown up now, you CYOA readers. Heck; you might even be parents yourselves. How time does fly. I remember when I was visiting your classrooms ("They'll pay my way?! to fly all over the place and have a fuss made over me as an author?!") to talk about writing ("But kids," I wanted to say, "you do understand these aren't real books...?), being the Cool Grownup in my leather jacket and bright blue 80s boots with the studs on them. . . .

One of you recently wrote me, though, to tell me about this - I wouldn't have believed it til I'd seen it with my own eyes, I can tell you. A program in Robin Hood Studies at The University of Nottingham. What will they think of next?

Sounds like an awesome program - but just make sure you've got, as it were, another string to your bow.

Comments

[writingjen.livejournal.com]

I came dangerously close to attending graduate school at the U. of Cardiff to pursue Arthurian Studies.... Honestly though, with academic jobs the way they are, it would have been as easy to find a job in that as in the one I ended up with (Shakespeare, believe it or not). Then again, do I want my extreme geekiness actually set down officially in diploma form?

And yes, I do have one of your CYOA books -- found it at a library book sale and squee'd. :)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oo! I actually did one on King Arthur - KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE - but it was my final, and least successful one, I think: It was under contract the year I was moving to Boston to begin my job at WGBH - so *of course* I put off writing it til there were no more extensions, and banged it out in the first few weeks when I was filling in for the 5 a.m. morning show in my new (too-small) apartment on Beacon Hill, and SWORDSPOINT was just about to come out . . . .

Shakespeare is God. Let's say you're in Religious Studies.

[redrose3125.livejournal.com]

You wrote that book!! Eeep! Squee!

That was one of my favorite CYOAs!

This just makes you even cooler.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Silly. She could not be cooler. This just exposes you to yet more of her coolness.

[yaoi-in-exile.livejournal.com]

Thirded.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Awww...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

O'course, if you came to FantasyCon in Nottingham, you could drop by the university, speak to the students, look at some original documents, etc etc, as well as having wonderful fun with Us; and know that every gleeful moment was tax-deductible, which always adds to the pleasure...

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, twist my arm!!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*twists*

[wildwose.livejournal.com]

You're all grown up now, you CYOA readers. Heck; you might even be parents yourselves.

Hmmmm...yep.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I want to major in Robin Hood Studies with an emphasis in Basil (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029843/) Rathbone (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049096/).

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You'll come to Nottingham once too often, Sheriff!

(Did I get that right? My college pals were the ones who watched that movie every time it came on - I was in my Lurking & Sneering stage - watching for the notorious Green Jell-o in the Banquet Scene)

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I remember those boots! I only saw them once or twice, but they were like totally rad.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I misread your comment (twice!) as "I remember those books" - but it's the BOOTS! THE BOOTS! You remember them!! I am so happy. (Sad confession time: I think I still have them. They were certainly in the bottom of my closet for years, and nearly worn down to the nub. I thought I might have them repaired and wear them again someday . . . It is possible that Delia disabused me of that notion and refused to let me move them to NYC. Now I'm afraid to look - so, so glad someone else remembers them!)

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Well, I remember the books, too. I remember thinking you were inexpressibly cool because you'd written CYOAs. I mean, Swordspoint too, which rocked my world, but lots of people wrote fantasy. How many wrote CYOAs?

But the boots, the BOOTS. You were the first person I ever saw tie a scarf around your boot ankle, and it was those boots.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

A trick I learned from Terri Windling. I had forgotten that.

God, I miss the 80s!

(And those boots were *slashed*, you know!)

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I thought I remembered that! My recollection was that you laced the scarf through the slashes, but then I thought, how likely is that? Turquoise and studs and slashes?

Yeah, the '80s. I don't miss the hair, but I do miss those dirty-silver leather ankle boots we all wore.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

There's a couple of fascinating Robin Hood historical books, one of them by J.C. Holt, which track down the historical roots behind everything. My favorite tidbit is that "Friar Tuck" was the nom de guerre of a real-life outlaw who prowled around Surrey or Sussex (I forget which) some 200 years after the earliest mentions of Robin Hood, but despite both temporal and geographic distance, he got stuck into the legend sort of the way that Lancelot and Parsifal got stuck into the Arthurian legends.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Wow. How wonderfully quirky that that should be so. I would never have guessed/looked all that closely at the CYOAs in the basement! I did see last year at... BEA? ALA? They're re-doing the series, glossier, and younger.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it was BEA - I saw them, too, and picked up a handful of buttons that say "BE CHOOSEY! cyoa.com" - would anyone like one?

They seem to be reissues of the old titles, but only the ones done by co-founder Ray Montgomery & his minions. I worked with Ed Packard, a lovely man who invented the series by telling bedtime stories to his son; Montgomery was his business partner, and I think there was a falling out eventually. Too bad, as that means they won't reissue the ones I wrote. Ed played fair: his authors even got royalties. I even talked him up on my final book, by looking him in the eye and saying, "I have to pay my own health insurance."

I also got to work with some terrific freelance editors; my favorite - and for everyone's favorite title, THE MYSTERY OF THE SECRET ROOM, was Ellen Steiber; that's how I met her, and introduced her to Terri Windling, who invited Ellen to come be her roommate when she moved out to Tucson; they shared a house and creative space for many years, and Ellen did a really interesting fantasy for Tor. Funny how it all works out.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I read some of the very first CYOA books, as I was right smack in the target demographic when they came out. However, I realized after half-a-dozen or so that they were certainly NOT Real Books, and so I wasn't reading them any more when yours appeared.

I confess I was tempted, when tracking down spare copies of Swordspoint during that long bleak time when it was "out of stock at publisher," to snap up your CYOA titles, out of a sense of completeness. But the two Zelazny-inspired ones I'd picked up out of a similar urge had been SO wretched, I figured I probably wouldn't read them...

And, yes, I have a child of my own now. Who just read Swordspoint over the school vacation, AND TPotS, and she's in the middle of "The Fall of the Kings" right now. I suppose I should be grateful that the Fool's Delight scene led to one of Those Discussions! "As the only one at this table who HAS tried those drugs, I think I get the deciding opinion abut which one it's most like! And Alec's behavior makes it pretty obvious that it's a DUMB IDEA, right?"

for the record, my analysis is, tastes like opium, acts like LSD. Opium doesn't act like that.

Delight!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you had a child of your own - let alone one of, ah, TPOTS age already. I am tickled to death that my crazy book was useful for the kind of discussion that I had always assumed came out of books that - well, when I was of an age to despise them (and they were first coming in) had titles - always in the present tense - like SUSIE HAS AN ABORTION and MY BROTHER IS A JUNKIE. Ha.

Re: Delight!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, the YA "problem novels," the book equivalent of ABC after-school specials! Blech!

She's twelve, and in seventh grade, and while some people might think that on the young side for the City books, I know she's been writing slash of her OWN, so I had no qualms about the all-hands-and-collarbones bits in Swordspoint.

And, predictably, she loved them!

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

Quite a few of my friends wrote CYOAs, and of course Marco is now CEO of Solaris, who definitely publish real books, so they are a proven good career path. But I haven't yet found anyone willing to admit to having been responsible for Heartquest.

[mermaidrain.livejournal.com]

So how did you stumble upon the CYOA writing? Was that something that was offered to you because you were already an established author? Or is that something any writer can do?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I don't think I had published more than a short story or two at that point, but I'd been an editor in NYC, and went to all the big conventions. It was a World Fantasy in New Haven, I think, that the new CYOA editor was there, and I asked if he needed writers, and he said to send him a proposal, so I did. They were churning out 2-4 titles a month, I think, so they were very open to anyone who had the chops. I figured it would be a good way to learn to plot (ha!), and I needed the money. This is the way a lot of writers make a living: writing book product for cheap paperback popular series - often under a "house" name, like, well, Caroline Keene . . . . If we all needed to make a genuine living writing original novels of literary, most of us would be out of the business. Writers get university or other teaching jobs, or have spouses who bring in most of the family income, or something.

I don't know what the current opportunities are for writing series books etc, but I'm sure they're still out there. Anyone know where to research this?

[aqeldroma.livejournal.com]

I was totally in that demographic! I remember making my own CYOA in a notebook when I was eight.

[yaoi-in-exile.livejournal.com]

Novelist's School? o.o

[belledewinter.livejournal.com]

I'd love to go there, but it seems so far away! *cries*

[ladyuranus.livejournal.com]

I remember dismissing those CYOA novels offhand when I was of that age-- I think the school library owned like five of them (none of yours, I'm sure, they all seemed to be contemporary or sci-fi) and I really, desperately wanted one with a female protagonist, but to no success. To think I could have been an Arthurian Knight! No fun.

On Robin Hood-- those not watching the BBC series are missing out on some cracktastic fun.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

I know this is an older thread, but the program's been there for 15 years at least. I graduated from college (Rutgers) in 1989 with a minor in Medieval Studies (it became a major the following year). My thesis (yes, I had to do a thesis for my minor!) was on Robin Hood, a subject I'd been rather obsessed with for oh, most of my life. A few years after I graduated, I found a grad school info book for the University of Nottingham. I instinctively turned to the Medieval Studies section, and then noticed there was entire program on Robin Hood Studies! Had grad school actually been in my cards, that's exactly what I would have done. And probably ended up with the same career I'm in now (publishing). But having been to Nottingham, I can say they do capitalize on Robin Hood just a little bit. :-) (Though there's all sorts of research that points to the earliest ballads taking place in a different forest--I haven't read the comments, so I don't know if that has been brought up or not.)

And I still have my copy of the Choose Your Own Adventure book, simply because it IS Robin Hood. I think I stole it from one of my sisters.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

It is a sad, sad comment on our times when something a mere 3 days old is already "an older thread." Ay, me! I'm so glad you wrote, anyway. Sounds like a good life.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

I'm happy with it. And I still read scads of Robin Hood related things in my "spare time."

CYOA

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I already told you of my childhood past with my beloved collection of CYOA books (almost entirely Packards, what with yours
came out after I was too old for them...though Ive since hunted them down to save for Spencer). Should you ever find contact info for Ed Packard again, please let me know - Id love to drop him a line - it
has to be more than 15 years since I was last able to write him. He
might be amused to hear about my quite literate 3 year old :) -Jess

Re: CYOA

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

If I ever find Ed, I'll let you know!