Paksworld

On occasion I’ve written about writing in cooking terms–stirring the pot, things bubbling up from below, flavorings that must not over-dominate the final meal, something cooking so long the story goes mushy, etc.    But there’s another relationships between cooking and writing that not many people have mentioned.

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It was a very busy day.  So will this be, but at least the suspense before launch is now down a notch.

Reminder: this is a spoiler-free zone for awhile.   When I do open a topic for discussion of Oath of Fealty, it will be signposted as having spoilers, so those of you who don’t like them will find it easy to avoid.  (No spoilers in my entry post, for instance.)   But for at least the first week or two,  we’re not discussing the book (though unbounded adulation is always appropriate, says the Authorial Ego.  The Authorial Ego won’t shut up.)

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The “coming out” party begins on this side of the pond.

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…and I am Not Ready.  Anxious, of course.   Eager, of course.  But if “ready” is supposed to include organized, all supplies in place, wardrobe chosen and prepared, etc, etc, etc….no.  Not Ready.   And thanks to the misery that’s Daylight Savings Time (every year I scream silently at the heavens “It does not save any !**! daylight!!!”  And here in Texas we pray all summer for night to come and give us small relief from the day’s heat and glare)  it is already 9:30 in the morning when it should be 8:30.

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No sign of my personal copy of the new book.  Not here at the house, not in the green tote (I keep checking, as if it might magically appear from another dimension),  not at the friend’s house where I thought I might’ve left it.  It’s gone.   That backs up the time of disappearance to Wednesday.  Where was I on Wednesday?   At the recording studio, then at the friend’s house where it isn’t, then at church for choir practice.  The green tote was with me in all those places, but choir is the likeliest place to have left it.  Called the church (not going to drive another 100 miles into the city and back out today just in case…having driven back from College Station in the morning)  and it hadn’t been turned in to reception.

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Not that I’m jittery or anything…just because the US edition of Oath of Fealty will hit the stores in five days…but I started thinking about fives.  Five bits of wisdom about fives that I’ve accumulated over the years:

1.  Five hours of sleep a night is not enough once you’re over forty.

2. Five pennies make a nickel, but if you’re going to save coins, save bigger ones: five Susan B. Anthony dollars  is five dollars, which will actually buy something.  And it’s just as hard to lean over and pick up that penny as it is to pick up the dollar.

3.  Flowers with five petals create more different shapes than flowers with four…for no reason I can see, but they do.

4.  A musical interval of a fifth is easy to sing.  Not so a sixth.  For me, anyway.

5.   Five pages of writing usually takes me less than two hours, but the next five pages will take twice as long.

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My friend John Hemry, who also writes as Jack Campbell (the Lost Fleet books)  was asked by his audio-books publisher to record an interview or conversation with another writer–and he chose me.    We’re both military vets,  we’ve been on panels together, and we get along very well.    The tricky bit was finding a way for someone in Annapolis, Maryland and someone in (more or less) Austin, Texas to hold a conversation in a way that would result in a good recording. Read the rest of this entry »

So in my mind (and partly on paper) I had even the new things more or less organized, I thought.    Certain things for Monday, certain things for Tuesday, then Wednesday, then a day to pack and prepare for the trip to College Station, with a wary eye on the weather (my preferred route avoids most major highways, but isn’t OK if there’s heavy rain…)   Monday ran almost (!) to schedule, except I worked on only one pieces of music and could not finish the blog post for UK-editor.   It looked stupid.  (Trust me: I can write stupid.)

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I emailed the synopsis off to Editor-UK this morning, then held horses for the farrier.   Horses are trimmed.   Mac pinned his ears a couple of times but gave it up after we weren’t intimidated.   Illusion stood out in the falling mist looking pitiful until it was his turn.    So I put Mac “out” (in the main horse lot) and kept Illusion in the smaller barn lot where I can check on him easily.

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I’m supposed to write a synopsis of Kings of the North, and since the book is essentially done (barring the revisions I’m working on) you’d think that would be easy.   Or some of you would.  Some of you may suffer from a-synopsisism, a condition in which writing synopsis is only slightly more difficult and painful than pulling off your toenails one by one.

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