Paksworld

…of copy edits corrected.    There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty.

I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago.  Tired.  Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one.  Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, but the CE’s job is one of marking anything that strikes him or her as off.

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Here’s a snippet from Kings of the North.   Location:  Vérella, the Verrakai city house.   Time:  Day after coronation of the young king.  Present:  Dorrin Duke Verrakai, the Marshal-General of Gird, the new Marshal-Judicar of Tsaia, another Marshal.

If you totally, absolutely, do not want any spoilers at all–including zero idea that something might happen after this of plot-significance–don’t read past the break.

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I got some work done on III today,  finishing a chapter that started out one way and ended up harrowing.    But now comes the time of hard deadlines…once out of my editor’s hands and into Production’s, all the deadlines are granitic.    Copy edit review must be done and CEs returned on time.   Other stuff’s supposed to go in at the same time or shortly thereafter.  copy edit crunch and the associated bits that must be done before getting back to III full time.   So what you’ll probably hear from me is all about other stuff, and some snippets, if I can remember what I posted of snippets from Kings before so I don’t bore you with repeats.  (Yes, of course I should note down what I’ve already posted.   But I haven’t.   Or not always.)   You don’t get any III snippets until later.

Right now, before I dive into the copy edits, we have a missing squire, a dead royal courier, a dead many-times-transferred Verrakai magelord, and once more people are looking at Dorrin mistrustfully.

Yesterday was a partial success (interference from gut bug, but still some production of decent story) and today, despite Book III’s attempt to lure me off to another project (at least, I’m blaming III for that, rather than the other project–a nonfiction book), I made progress on both of them.   1500 on the nonfiction,  not quite 1500 on III.

Book III would like to run smoothly, but too smoothly…I stopped it in its tracks today when it was about to have a perfectly normal conversation in a place that demanded something else.   “Wait,” I said.  “If A really started from X in the morning,  A should have reached Y by now.  And A is only halfway between.  B started from Y at noon and is halfway now, so do we see a problem?”

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1500+ words today.  Book III is out of its sulks (I hope, forever) and moving forward with some impulsion.   Apparently yesterday’s long, leisurely drive back from a speaking gig, taking little tiny back roads and navigating by sun and the lay of the land,  unkinked something…or the scribbled notes I’ve been making finally came together, or…something.

You might think that being in real spring while writing in story-winter would be confusing, but it’s not.    I can see characters’ breath smoking in the cold air, smell the woodsmoke from the kitchen, etc.    Never mind that the real woodsmoke is from someone having bulldozed every tree off a plot and started burning the debris…debris that was grass, trees, shrubs, etc…grump.  ANYway.    Story’s moving.  Just thought you’d like to know.

…But it’s fixed now and none of you will ever know why I had to dive back into Kings of the North, fix something, email my editor about it, have her point out what was wrong with the fix, fix it again….

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…is supposed to trump youth and beauty.    But who is really old?    A half year ago, Kieri, Arcolin, and Dorrin would have said they were growing old.   Not ancient, just old.  Kieri, some of you will recall, commented to the Marshal-General (in Oath of Gold) that he was getting old and didn’t have an heir, and worried about the fate of his domain.  (He was right to worry, but for other reasons…)

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Not talking here about the obviously fantasy weddings we usually see (in pictures in the paper announcing them, for instance) between the beautiful bride and the handsome groom who might as well be made of sugar icing because they’re going to melt in the first heat of difficulty.  No, talking here about the weddings in fantasy fiction…since there’s going to be one (though not yet…don’t start making the cake now.)

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Book III is once more regarding me with indifference.   Book III doesn’t care that  Book I was getting its launch, and Book II needed  its editorial revisions completed…books, once out of the gate, are selfish to the nth degree and care only about themselves.  They want the writer’s full attention, thank you.  So I’m setting serious daily goals for it, and dragging it along, one difficult sentence after another.   This is the part of writing that is Not Fun–something that every writer faces sooner or later, and often repeatedly.

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Kings of the North has now traveled down the hall (so to speak) from Editorial to Production, as Editor called yesterday with one last tweak–and then approved the tweak I provided.    A few more things need to be sent off–the front matter stuff, dedication and the like, and a map specific to this book–but basically it’s now on the cog railway towards its emergence next year as a book on the shelf.

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