Paksworld

Some of you will remember the “Rules of Aare” quoted and discussed extensively in Surrender None.   Some will also remember the various mentions of Old Aare, legends and stories and songs about that mysterious land and the “fall” of Aare that brought the magelords across the sea.   You know it’s across the Immerhoft Sea from Aarenis, and that Aarenis was named for it:  “Daughter of Aare.”

But the deep mysteries of Old Aare are central to the long story arc of this group of books…what happened in Aare has had consquences affecting the entire north as well.    There are a few hints of this in Oath of Fealty, though it’s mostly concerned with the immediate consequences of Kieri’s  move to Lyonya.    More show up in book two.   Paks unwittingly involved herself in the affairs of Aare, elves, dwarves, dragons,  and magelords even before she became a paladin…everyone she touched is changed by that, as well as just her personality and more obvious paladin qualities.

So a lot of questions will be answered, though I can’t promise they all will be (in fact, probably not.  Just the big ones.)

I’ve been talking about the new new book, book two of the current group, but as I was prowling through book one, Oath of Fealty, checking for continuity on something,  I was reminded of the thinking I did about how people felt when Kieri disappeared from their lives.

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Local experienced alpha reader, having read the latest (until this morning) version of a chapter, thought it much improved but still needing a tweak or two.  And finally got it through my head exactly what was bothering him.

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Yesterday was complicated by my first voice lesson with our choir director, and then came supper and then came choir practice, so by the time I got home (sometime after 10 pm) I was not in any state to write.  However, on the way home I thought about the music in the Paks books and the new ones.

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In order to free up some wordspace for what needs to be added,  something had to come out.    Several somethings, in fact.    Does this mean you, the readers, lose out on some deathless prose, some priceless nuggets of literary excellence?

Alas (alas, because I wish I wrote nothing but deathless prose and priceless nuggets, etc), no.   You are instead being saved some yawns and annoyance, as the excised bits were neither necessary nor sufficiently decorative.

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Early in a book project,  research is a major part of the work.   No matter what kind of book you’re writing, you’ll need to do some research, if only to find out (for instance) which way the one-way streets went in a given city in 1965 (or something similar.)   Because among the community of readers, there’s always the expert who knows, and will be glad to tell the world, if you made a mistake.   If your own desire to write perfect books ever flags, you know there’s this person, ready to purse their lips and write a scathing comment about your carelessness where it will do you the most harm.  (Nicer people pursing their lips just write you, which still stings but at least allows you your dignity.)

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About three days ago,  one of those ideas hit me that could be really good, sort of interesting, or not at all the right move.    It’s very spoiler-full, so here’s your first spoiler warning…if you don’t like spoilers, skip this post.

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I think I mentioned that thanks to reader comments I’ve now found a way to change one of the A- names (Alured the Black) to something else for a logical reason in K-II.   Alured considers his current name too plebian and associated too closely with his criminal past, so he wants a fancier name.  He has some genealogical records that he thinks relate to his real parentage, so he picks a non-A (not his reason but mine) name from among them.

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I forgot to post this separately (DUH!) as soon as I got home, but on Wednesday last week I did a video interview with Betsy Mitchell, my editor.   It involved a teeny-tiny camera on a tripod…about pack-of-playing-cards size on a tripod that could’ve held a Big Fat Important Camera.   In the process of setting up for it, I learned about the Book Cabinet (no, I’m not telling you.  Not now, anyway.)

The video went up Sunday evening, but I was flat out from the end of trip and didn’t find it until today…should’ve posted the link before now, though.

[Edited to fix link]

K-II being its “stable name,” that is.

Editor says that no amount of backfilling will allow readers who start with K-II to understand everything that went before.

There’s a lot of before.   Although K-I, now known formally as Oath of Fealty, covers only about a quarter year of that world’s time, it’s a quarter year in which a great deal happens.    Some of the problems mentioned about K-II arose from not knowing what was in K-I, but others were real problems.

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