Paksworld

Right now, I’m pouring words into the files for Book V, so I’m not keeping up with everything the Punctuation Working Group is doing….trying to check comments and email a few times a day, but not really able to concentrate on anything but stuff I can’t tell you yet.   (I should have been listening to different music…finally thought mixing Smetana’s Bartered Bride first act with Saint-Saens’ symphonies, not Beethoven.  And…it’s galloping.)   I’d forgotten the particular combination of suspense, darkness, and explosive brilliance, in that one in particular…goosebumps.  Lots and lots of goosebumps.   Just what I needed.)

Anyway, my brain’s not in pronunciation right now.   It’s in getting Book V done to “send to editor standard”.

Forgive the inattention after handing over that job, please.

Also–remember that my webmistress wants the output as a .doc, .rtf, or .txt file.  She has her own tricks for making it pretty on the website and says those are an easier starting point than others.   (Also, I can’t read docx or xcl files on my machine, so I can’t look files over before sending them on to her.)

Brilliance, who are working on the new Paksworld audiobooks,  sent me a list of words for help with pronunciation.  And then another list.   Remembering that some time back we had a discussion here (more than one, maybe?) on pronunciation of words from Paksworld,   and other questions I’ve had, I set to work on them.    And kept the list and my attempts at making pronunciation easier on files for myself.    The list has about 140 words/names on it, but they’re not in alphabetical order (in order of appearance in the text, apparently)  and I think there are some duplicates.  Also, it’s not complete, if you go back to the first books: there are names and places and words that aren’t included.

You see where I’m going, I’ll bet.

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In case no one’s checking the comments in the contest thread…I’ve now read everything and made what I hope is an accurate list of unique contributors.

But, given that I’ve been sick and foggy-headed, I’d like someone else to count that too.  I get thirty unique contributors…is that what y’all think?    Once I have a check on the number, I can run the random number app and have a winner.

BTW…great entries.  I was so smart not to think I could pick a winner on merit because there were too many really good ones!

This is a small bouquet of gratitude to someone on the list who–reading the snippet–found an inconsistency with Oath of Gold and emailed me privately about it overnight.  So this morning I hauled out my copy of that book, and the manuscript, and knew he was right–it was an inconsistency and it needed to be fixed, if possible.   The book’s already past copy editing, so I didn’t know if it could, but I set to work looking for the smallest possible fix that wouldn’t mess up any other previous books.

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Help, please!  I need someone with time on their hands and a copy of the books so far to hunt up a few things for me, if you would be so kind.

1> In which book (and which year of the current series–considering year one started with Oath and Kieri’s coronation)  did Dorrin take on squires?

2> Did the passage talking about that say anything about the length of the squire contract?   (I’m guessing two years, but am not sure.  If it was tied to ending at a specific age, then it’s different for each.)

3> Somewhere, in some book, I mentioned the squires’ actual ages (or some of their actual ages) and how much the age difference was.  I know Beclan is eldest, but cannot remember how much, and I need to know all three.  Again, which book, and what year of the current story.

Apologies for asking y’all to work, but I’m deep in something that needs to keep rolling and if I stop to look I’ll lose the momentum.  Am leaving square bracket spaces to fill in later.  Thanks!

Editor emailed this morning to let me know Echoes has gone back to print another 3000 copies.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a hardcover sent back to print that fast before.   Very happy dance of writer.   Wowza and all that.

And it’s you folks–the readers–who have made the book popular enough for this to be needed.  THANK YOU.    Read the rest of this entry »

In the book I’m working on,  the Company is once more camped near Ifoss, as in Sheepfarmer’s Daughter.   In that book, the Company camped on the west side of town.    Now they’re camping on the east side.  Moreover, the town’s changed some (as most towns did, during and after Siniava’s War.   Paks at that point didn’t care whether the town had a grange;  it does…on the west side.    Ifoss is still the smallest of the Foss Council cities, but its wall is no longer complete; expansion after Siniava’s War (the war to end wars, in the locals’ minds) led them to breach the wall to the northwest, while retaining most of the rest.    Several inns are mentioned in Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, and without my notebooks it didn’t occur to me to reuse any of the same names.  Until now, when–looking for something else–I ran across them.  So  there’s another bit of revision to be done.

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I think it’s in Oath of Fealty, but maybe in Kings of the North–at one of the peerage ceremonies–there’s mention of the other duke, the one who’s old and feeble and doesn’t ever show up at court anymore.   Apparently I put his name down somewhere other than the “Names” file and now I can’t find it.    It’s not Serrostin, Mahieran, Marrakai, or Verrakai.    It’s something else.  I need it again.

Help!  (And thanks, whoever finds it!   I’m finishing up scenes I hope will be final…)

Suddenly I need to find something in last part of the Deed that I just can’t spot in my copy–but I’m sure it’s there.    We’ve both looked and we’re not seeing it.    Somewhere–I think but am not sure that it’s between the time Paks gets to Chaya and meets the dying king, and the time she leaves Vérella following Kieri–someone reveals that Kieri’s elven mother chose to make him look more human than half-elven.

If anyone can find that passage and tell me who said that, to whom they said it, where it was said, and in what circumstance–that would be very, very helpful.   I’m revising a scene where I don’t trust my “new” version of that story told from a very different POV and need to check to be sure they are either in accord or there’s a reason for them not to be.    It’s important to know by what chain of informants Kieri learned this.  This just caught my eye last night.

Thanks.

Since I myself don’t enjoy pronunciation guides in books and would rather “hear as I read” whatever my phonics training hands me, I have resisted having a pronunciation guide for a long time.  But this is the era of audio books as well as printed books, and the books are being read in places were vowel sounds (to name one complication) aren’t like the ones I hear around me.    So it’s dawned on me that what I hear in my head should perhaps be laid out in a way that’s helpful to those who want/like pronunciation guides, without being stifling to those who–like me–wing it, right or wrong.  (In other words, if you hate pronunciation guides, don’t look at it when it arrives.)

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