Paksworld

Thank you Google (NOT) for costing me some days of work to fill out your stupid forms to remove my work from your clutches.

It is impossible for a writer to just say “Do not include any of my work in your digitization.”  It’s not even possible to say “Do not include any editions of this work, foreign or domestic.”  No, you have to go through the whole damnfool search & destroy procedure for every single version of every single title and sometimes you hit the wrong button and have to start over.

Also I’m printing out the current draft of Book Two because I need to see it off the screen.   So there will be a hiatus until I’ve dealt with Google (not, alas, with a flaming sword) and gotten my stuff “claimed.”

Those of you waiting for word on being alpha readers, or having already cleared the hurdle and waiting for the whole ms, my apologies.  The wait will last a bit longer.  I’m not spending my Saturday dozing in the sun, I can tell you that!

As I close in on having Book Two ready to send to my agent & editor,  and approaching the six-months-to-release date for Oath of Fealty, I’m seeking some help from you folks…

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The Paksworld website has some new material on it–some of it you’ve seen here, but it’s moved there for easier reference.  And some has been expanded.   I had to hit my Refresh button several times (OK, once for each changed page) to see it, but there are now maps (under the Places/Maps) link, more on holidays (under the People/Religion link) and cover pictures for both the US Oath of Fealty and the UK Deed of Paksenarrion (under the Fiction link.)

Enjoy!

I’ve been told I’ll be getting the page proofs early in September.   This is the step that produces ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies, or review copies.)   As of September, we’re only six months from publication…scary thought.

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Here it’s spanned, loaded with a little wad of aluminum foil (no goldfish crackers at fencing class last night) and ready to shoot.

Available from New World Arbalest –email them if you want one.  It’s not up on the online catalog yet.   Mine is 13.5 inches long; the prod when the bow’s not spanned is 8 inches.

Ammunition–try things.  I’ve used the goldfish crackers, the corner off a saltine cracker, M&Ms, carrot and celery sticks (inch to inch and a half long work better than longer ones, and trimmed fairly narrow but still stiff), wadded up paper and aluminum foil.   Oh, and the foam ammunition for a toy gun.   I expect it would also work with dry peas and beans (haven’t tried yet)

Today I read a bit of the new book to an unselected audience for the first time: a scene with as much interest and as few spoilers as I could find.  This was at ArmadilloCon.

The audience liked it, but you have to understand it was Sunday at a science fiction convention and everyone was looking a bit (some more than a bit) glazed.  All except one soul who apparently thought this was a critique group and not the reading of something finished, and explained what she thought needed to be changed.  (Hint: don’t do this.  It’s like the old joke about trying to teach a pig to sing–you can’t, and it only annoys the pig.  The book’s in production, as I told her with as much gentleness as I could muster.  No changes at this point.  But, ahem.)

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My UK editor has given me permission to post the cover art for the UK Deed of Paksenarrion omnibus!   So here it is:

Orbit cover for Paks omnibus

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OK–Verizon has finally told SFF.net when the change will take place–“sometime” between midnight and 6 am  Central Daylight Time (for the US, this is)  on Friday the 14th.   All services there (my websites, these blogs, the mail and news servers) will go *poof* for at least two hours as the SFF.net staff puts things back online and checks them out.  Maybe longer.

So don’t expect to access my stuff (this stuff, for instance) from midnight to at least 8 am CDT.

Remember that SFF.net, which hosts my sites (and thus these blogs) expects everything to be unavailable for a considerable time on August 16, and the instability will probably start on August 14–this Friday.

Do not worry–stuff will come back eventually.   If I get more details I’ll let you know, except that I’ll be gone starting August 14 (ArmadilloCon in Austin, Texas, for the weekend) and won’t be home until next Wednesday the 20th.  I’m flying out to South Carolina on Monday morning.   That means any last minute updates from SFF.net will miss me.  Any of you who are on SFF.net yourselves might want to check the admin.announce newsgroup, and if you see an update, let others know.  Don’t email me–I’m not taking the laptop to the convention or South Carolina…I’ll find out what’s happened when I get back (and hopefully, by then everything will be back up with its new IP numbers.)

Progress continues on both the revisions of book two and the first-drafting of book three.   In the original Paks books, I wrote parts of the second and third book in parallel almost.   Here I’m finding revising two while writing three to be just as useful–since the things are So Darned Long, working on the previous one helps with continuity.   A lot.

So…what’s happening now?

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