Paksworld

When you get the manuscript back from the copy editor (via the publisher) it’s conveniently referred to as “the copy edit” or “the copy edits.”   (Plural for its many pages, I guess.)

You find out at this point that your carefully prepared manuscript has mistakes in it.  You changed something but left one word of the old version of that sentence and did not see it.   Oh, the shame!   You misspelled something–and you a writer of many years, how could you!?  Oh, more shame.

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Hey folks–my webhost just warned us all that Verizon (which supplies their access to everything) is insisting on making big changes, including of their IP numbers.   So on or about August 14 (if the schedule doesn’t change)  the Paksworld site and this blog will go *poof* for at least one day, and maybe more–the web host will have alternate servers in another location, but they expect things to be ‘bobbly,’ as they say, for about 72 hours and hopefully not longer.

We’re promised more details later on, and I’ll pass those on to you, as well as reminding you a few days before the blank-out that it’s coming.   If anyone misses this announcement and the next, and emails you in a panic about it, please share the word.

There was a glitch with the copy edits…which I haven’t talked about much if at all.   They didn’t come, and didn’t come, and finally I was told that they weren’t able to contact the copy editor.   I tried to be a Good Little Writer and just keep truckin’ on the revisions, but as time passed, I worried more and more.  (So, of course, did my editor.)

The worry began to interfere with my ability to concentrate on the book (no, I do not possess superhuman concentration) and I began to spend more online time far away in another corner of the internet.   Nature listservs, email, the new SFWA website’s beta test…anything…

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It’s been small steps this week, for various reasons.

There was the first test of the new meat saw over at the ranch, which resulted in the need to make lamb curry (need is a relative term.  We like lamb curry a lot.)    But that took up a morning–not the single cut, but cleaning the meat saw afterwards.   In Paks’s world, there are no big meat band saws…there are big butchers with sharp knives and cleavers in the cities, and experienced persons elsewhere.    It’s easier to clean a knife than a band saw, but harder to cut up the carcass.

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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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Apologies, to start with…I could not bear to see the cover image slide down out of sight…hence the lack of posts for a week.

But I haven’t been idle in that time.   No, the copy edits aren’t here yet, but some structural problems in book two…aren’t here still.   They’re fixed.   Here’s what happened.

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And I now have permission to share.  

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I’ve seen the cover art for Oath of Fealty from the Del Rey office.  Oh, wow!  It’s not what I imagined it would be, so it took me a moment to refocus my brain, but it’s stunning and a strong design.    (And it should be easy to notice on bookshelves, hurray!)

As soon as they let me, I’ll post an image.

Bouncing Author!

First: Happy Canada Day to you Canadians.

Second:   This may make you laugh.  It did me.   Critical scene–critical in terms of reader spatial orientation as well as reader “what’s happening” orientation.

And I got both direction (east v. west) and possibility wrong.   It was a plot bomb, and I was writing as fast as I could, but still!  East is east and west is west and if you go the wrong way you end up in the wrong place.   And one little three-letter word (“not”)  makes a huge difference.

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