Paksworld

What you send to Agent or Editor varies with the kind of book, but I’m now working on the not-book parts of the submission package.   NewEditors who are assigned in the middle and latter parts of a group of books–especially something as complicated as the Paksworld books–usually appreciate something that will get them up to speed quicker than just reading the whole (in this case eight previous) books.   Copyeditors always like to have a list of unique character names, words, etc.   And that’s what I’m doing now, taking a break from the wildlife management report for a few hours to work on this.

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Page proofs are done and should be shipped off today if I make it to the city.  Otherwise, another day (not due yet, so no screaming rush.)

As to Book IV, I had an interesting chat with a writer-friend last night, complaining that something I wrote way back at the beginning of this, and had been trying to find the right place for, really needs to go in Book IV–but I’m not sure where or how.   He had an idea, which I’m thinking about.   I like what I’ve written as I’ve written it, and it would have to be changed (in tone, in detail) to do what he’s suggested (essentially, moving from a mysterious but suggestive scene to a dream sequence.)

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This evening I’m struggling to dry (somehow) a shirt I meant to wash in the hotel room washbasin Saturday but forgot in a drawer…and now it’s a damp pink lump.  So far the hair dryer has made scant inroads on its dampness (yes, yes, it was rolled in towels before ever being hung up.)   I shouldn’t have washed it.  I should have carried it home dirty.  Sigh.   Nobody bugged Paks about putting a dirty shirt in her pack on the way back from a foray.

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The struggle with tangled plotlines and histories is now showing clear progress.   I don’t think even the most spoiler-phobic will think being told the categories of revelations are spoilerish…but just in case, I’m putting a break between this first paragraph and the rest.

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I’ve been knitting again, and the ball of yarn from which I’m knitting (ball, not skein) developed some tangles in its innards (it’s a commercially wound ball; they do this sometimes.)  It was necessary to partially eviscerate the ball (reading into the hole and feeling around and then pulling a hunk out) to untangle it.   This is remarkably like what’s gone on  with the story the past few days, and is a clear sign that my sudden urge to start knitting again was connected to more than hand pain–my brain needed the tactile and musculo-skeletal input.

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So as I’m slogging, lurching, struggling through the mental swamp that is this part of Book IV,  I realize that what keeps tripping me up is the E subplot.  (As opposed to A, B, C, and D.)    What the heck is going on with E-subplot (or, to shorten things, Eplot.

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Since everyone appears to be enjoying the background material (I wasn’t sure you would),  and the tractor isn’t here yet, I’ll throw in some more tidbits to tide you over until tomorrow.   Or the next day.  Nothing should be spoilerish for Kings or the books following…some outcropped in the original books and some didn’t.   (And I don’t promise that there’s nothing new in background that might outcrop in this book or the next.)

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In the original Paks books,  dragons were believed to have existed at one time, but to have been vanquished (some said by Camwyn Dragonmaster.)    No dragons had been seen in human lands for a long, long, very long time.    In this lack of direct evidence, imagination flourished, and the Sinyi, many of whom had in fact seen dragons in their living memory, did not dispel any of the notions that humans came up with.  Nor did the rockfolk, who had–if not living memory–at least a closer tie to dragons.   In fact…they found human stories about dragons amusing.   Even the gnomes, who find very little amusing.   Still, though the legends attached to dragons have little basis in fact, they are of interest in how they shape humans’  ideas about dragons.

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Legends that cross racial boundaries (elf/human, human/gnome, elf/dwarf, etc.)  look very different in versions from the different groups.    The story of The Severance between elves and kuaknomi is perhaps the most complex of these, as it involves elves, humans, and trees.  This is necessarily a simplified version, and would be hotly disputed by some of those involved.

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The legends of Paksworld involve a startling number of wicked kings, especially way in the past.    Gird is “historical” in that he’s not that far back and the evidence is more documentary than legendary.   Falk and Camwyn and Torre and others (including such figures as Dort the Master Shepherd, the Blind Archer,  Guthlac Lord of the Hunt) are more on the legendary side, with no direct evidence that they existed.  But for some the tales are so specific it’s hard to think they might not have a basis in reality.  Read the rest of this entry »