Paksworld

Sometimes a vivid imagination leads you wrong.  Sometimes trying to fix the wrong leads to a different wrong, but not a fix.  Book III again, this time with Kieri and someone you haven’t met, Sgt. Vardan of Halveric Company.

The present instance of this is a battle.  It’s not a big battle (it’s big to those in it, of course) but it needs to serve several long-plot purposes as well as a short plot purpose or three, and like many military engagements “no plan survives contact with the enemy.”  In this case, the “civilian” plan of  serving the plot isn’t working.

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In other words, I actually held the  US hardcover in my hands today!!!  My very own first copy!!

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In Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, the various wanderers in the woods sort of divided into Alured the Black’s people (well-armed, cohesive group under one commander, in the southern forest of Aarenis),  a group near Czardas (may or may not have been associated with any other group, and mention of “woods-wanderers” here and there.

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It’s fortuitous that in Book III, I’m  presently dealing with winter weather (shows how little progress I’ve made lately!) because today it snowed.  It hasn’t snowed like this here for years, and I decided that a long walk in the snow would give me more recent sensory inputs than my memory of the most recent previous snow.    Read the rest of this entry »

The author pinches her nose and shakes her head.   Book III again.  Some people, if they get out of a bad spot with miraculous (if unpleasant) intervention, would just be grateful and resolve to be better men/women hereafter.    Some people. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve talked about plotbombs before, and how they sometimes dump 1-2 chapters on me without warning, exploding all through the plot and making some things clear while making other things change. Read the rest of this entry »

I was actually making progress on Book Three today when a friend emailed to tell me that a plane had flown into a building that I drive past regularly, in Austin Texas.  I tried to stay glued to Arvid (who had informed me plaintively that I hadn’t provided any food for him and during his earlier misfortunes he’d been starved for two days…) and did manage to offer some coarse-ground meal (spelt, I think),  onions, and raw redroots, but reality trumped the fiction writing.  Read the rest of this entry »

My husband’s niece lost her husband this morning to a sudden, very severe infection that started last week.   This isn’t a part of the family I know well, but I’m very sorry for her and their two children.

Between Ash Wednesday meditations and this,  no writing has been added to the new book, though I dealt with a lot of writing business today.    One of the bits of writing business was getting set up for an online chat, that will take place with John Hemry ( author of the Lost Fleet books as Jack Campbell and JAG in Space books as John Hemry) and fans, on March 16 between 4 and 5 pm Eastern Time.   Our editor suggested that we talk about researching for writing, and we’ve exchanged ideas and questions today.

The fan portal for the chat will be through Suvudu.com, and if you wander past there, you’ll see that online chats are fairly common.   John and I have known each other for years–it should be a lot of fun for all.   I think it’s great that modern communications give us the chance to do things like this.  I hope you’ll come see what happens.   (And yes, there will be reminders…)

…”Out of period!” sniffs the judge of exclamations.  “Does not fit the book.”

Well, no, but my copies of the Orbit edition of Oath of Fealty arrived today.    They’re both in the study with me where I gloat over them every few minutes.    Read the rest of this entry »

…for ConDFW (I leave in the morning, won’t be back until Monday night, and may not post until Tuesday),  Editor sent me an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy, also known as a review copy) of the book.   (Let me tell you, hearing that people had bought one on e-Bay, when I didn’t have one, was a strain on my equanimity!)   However, I now have something for show-and-tell, even though it doesn’t have any of the artwork. Read the rest of this entry »