Paksworld

Yesterday was complicated by my first voice lesson with our choir director, and then came supper and then came choir practice, so by the time I got home (sometime after 10 pm) I was not in any state to write.  However, on the way home I thought about the music in the Paks books and the new ones.

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I think I mentioned that thanks to reader comments I’ve now found a way to change one of the A- names (Alured the Black) to something else for a logical reason in K-II.   Alured considers his current name too plebian and associated too closely with his criminal past, so he wants a fancier name.  He has some genealogical records that he thinks relate to his real parentage, so he picks a non-A (not his reason but mine) name from among them.

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Just to return to where we are, sort of…

Location: Chaya, in Lyonya, the day after Kieri arrives.  He has gone to see his cohort in the inn where they’re housed.

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I’m first-drafting on the third book now, while doing revisions on the second, and something’s come up that you’ll see hints of in the second book.  But I don’t think it’s a spoiler, really….more like storm clouds on the horizon.  (I’ve tried converting the selection from Word to .txt, but Word being Word can’t be sure all the formatting’s really gone, so there may be a fast edit following to remove it in WordPress…I can’t see the stuff until it’s published. )

Location:  northeastern Tsaia

Cracolnya is reporting to Arcolin about some unexpected visitors.

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After some bumps in the road (so to speak, and about which no speaking will be done)  Book consented to pick up a long trot  and make progress today.    I’ve been squiggling (technical term) through the byways of the second book to find out what was stuck in its gears, and removing same, which may be why it picked today to shake its head once and head down the trail.

I’m not sure it’s on the right trail, but it’s moving, and as Karen Pryor said about training critters, you can train something that’s moving, but not something motionless.    What’s happening?  The Count of Andressat is meeting the King of Tsaia…and I expect some jaw drops at this point.   Poor Jeddrin has gone not just around Robin Hood’s barn but many other barns to get there but he’s in possession of valuable information and so is the king, and if they put it together just right….well, we’ll see.

I’d like to get as much done as possible before the copy edits come in, but with my UK editor wanting some things done in between, there may not be as much progress as I hoped.    Today was about a thousand words–and I’m sure I’ve ripped that much of out of it since late last week. But this was true plot advance.

I’ve mostly-inked the “strip” of territory that’s in Oath of Fealty.   For those familiar with the Paks books, that includes the part of Aarenis from Andressat north–east boundary roughly Cortes Cilwan, west to the Westmounts…then north over the pass at Valdaire to include Tsaia from just west of Vérella east to include Lyonya to just east of Chaya.   Because Tsaia extends  north of the Honnorgat River and Lyonya doesn’t, this means part of Pargun is also showing.

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This is a try at pasting something from the ms.  by way of Wordpad, which is supposed to strip off all the Word formatting.    I’m going to put the whole snippet behind the “read more” break, so if it erupts into formatting you won’t have it all over your feed (if you’re one of the feed-followers.)

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This snippet is from a passage that will not appear in the book–my choice, not an editor’s cut, so the scene was never fully fleshed out.  You have conversation, nothing else.   However, as a snippet, I don’t mind sharing it with you.  I believe, when the book comes out, you will agree that this and the extension of it (several more pages full of spoilers) were better left out.

Location:  Verella, the Verrakai house in town.  Time: 14 days after Kieri Phelan left Verella for Lyonya

Speakers:  Duke Haron Verrakai and his brother.

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Most of the background stuff for Religions and Characters is now up at the Paksworld website.

The character list is not complete for past books (has none of the Gird/Luap characters but Gird himself, for instance)  but also…it will grow with the story.    It should, however, be useful now.

If you prefer a perfectly alphabetical list,  copy that one, yank out the division titles, and have at it…she says wickedly.

Religions

Characters

Comments are welcome, but the lists aren’t likely to be changed (added to, revised, whatever) for awhile, as both my web-guru and I are facing a very busy month.

Sometimes any little thing I touch wants to turn into story–taking the story off on wild side trips.   This has been going on for several days, and the past couple have been productive…but I’m not sure if it’s productive of what I really need.

Still, adding words to the story is a little like adding words to your vocabulary–as the pile grows, there’s more you can do with it.

So today the book stands at 130, 236.

And Arvid, like Granny Weatherwax,  can say “An’t dead yet.”