David Drake

NEWSLETTER 67: March 5, 2012

Dear People,

I’m hard at work on the next Tor fantasy, Demons from the Earth; the third of the Books of the Elements. When I first start writing a novel, that’s always the big news in my mind.

I think that would be true even if I suddenly got a multi-million dollar movie contract (and no, there’s no glimmer of that to the best of my knowledge). Writing books is what I do. What happens after that (or before that, in the case of contracts) is important, but it isn’t me. If movies/TV were what interested me, I’d be a screenwriter or something of the sort. And if business were what interested me, I’d still be a lawyer.

Jeepers. Thinking about it, I’m not sure which of those possibilities strikes me as less pleasant.

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Me, Manly Wade Wellman and Dave Shelton, 1971

On March 17, 1970, I met Manly for the first time, in his writing office above a drugstore in the center of Chapel Hill. According to my journal for the day:

Talked to Mr. Wellman (“My parents wrote my great-uncle Manly to say they were naming me after him. He wrote back ‘Forget about me; name him Wade Hampton!’ So I got the full load.”): heavy, iron-grey with a brush mustache, wearing a sport coat, dark blue shirt & tie.

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