Paksworld

I was reminded again this weekend of the way death comes seemingly out of nowhere to shatter relationships new and old.   A friend of mine in another state was participating in a serial transport of a rescued dog from the shelter where it was first found to its future home, some two thousand miles away.   The puppy stayed at her house overnight, and the next day she drove it to the next person in the chain.   The person set off…and she and the puppy were killed in a weather-related road accident.  You can read about it on my friend’s blog, which includes a beautiful tribute to the remarkable woman who was killed.  Please do, in fact.

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The history page on the Paksworld website has now been updated and expanded.   Ever wonder what they use for money in the different realms?   Want to know more about trade?   You folks were showing enough interest that when I went into the file to fix typos (and let’s hope I didn’t just create more typos)  I decided to add more information.

Agent had some worthwhile comments on Book IV which sent it back to me for more work.   This will result in an added chapter early in the book and the “perking up” (my term, not Agent’s)  of some fairly large chunks considered “flat” as well as showing one character more active and tough than before (hadn’t realized that character had softened that much between books.)     Some of that will involve shortening, and some will involve lengthening, as usual.   Agent has contacted Editor, who gave permission for an extension to do the work he suggested, pointing out that we could send her the version I sent him today, or a better version in ten days.  (Agent has had the book since January 20 and I appreciate the fast, analytical reading Agent gave it. )

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First a thank-you to y’all for your patience.    It has been a…um…very busy time here at the old homestead.  Tonight is the night of the Messiah performance, and that will make four days in a row of driving to the city for 3+ hours of singing (and on Sunday I drove in early to sing the first service at church, then drove home to do the other stuff.)

Your reward for the patience is a snippet, after a short review of revision progress.   I have finally (FINALLY) got important two important events tied in neatly with all their threads connected.    As I near the end of a book, everything has more and more threads hanging off it (it’s connected to this, that, and the other in various ways–foreshadowings that may go back several books,  links to contemporaneous happenings, hooks set that will turn out later to be significant, etc.    The next to last book in a group is even more rife with threads for every major event, internal and external.   And every one of those little stinkers needs to be woven in, as invisibly as possible, so the pattern is unbroken.    But enough about the work in progress:  Herewith a snippet from the work to come.

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So this afternoon I was hacking away at stuff, helped by Ms. Rancherfriend who has an excellent eye for the “enough of that, already” passages (she’s the reason the first Paks books did not chronicle every single hour of slogging through the mud. )  And while talking to her, a nagging little worry about a scene you will now never see  (because it Did Not Happen that way!)  suddenly rose up even though she hadn’t mentioned it, and I asked her what she thought about it.

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I am deep in chronology now, maybe halfway through, and discovering that I have duplicated some events (though the way the scenes are written varies a lot) and completely left out some very important ones.  Last night’s work session was on one such scene (a plot-mover for sure.)    Getting the others into even rough order helps a lot in seeing overlaps, duplicates, and gaps.

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At the end of Kings of the North, there’s a war just started between Pargun and Lyonya.  News has arrived in Tsaia, but not everyone’s heard it yet.  Beclan Mahieran, squire to Dorrin Duke Verrakai,  is out on patrol in the SW corner of Verrakai’s domain when Dorrin hears…commanding two tensquads of militia (some of them former Phelani soldiers.  Beclan’s proud of the fact that he is given a longer patrol route and more troops than the other squires.  He has no idea what’s coming.

………………………………………………………….

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I was determined to keep on schedule as much as possible before husband’s surgery, so my goal for this week was to make it to 120,000 words.  Which I did.   Today I went back to an unfinished chapter (it had stopped in a sort of lurch awhile back) and it took off a bit.    A certain teary widow has pulled up her socks and had an idea I certainly had not anticipated when I quit on that chapter.    I’m impressed.  Kieri’s impressed.

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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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