Paksworld

Because I moved from POV chapters to one central file a bit early (in order to make keeping word count easier, and thus checking against daily goals easier), the book began to grow in ways that ran counter to temporal sequence.

Or, more simply, it was/is a mess.

What I needed was a printout.   By this week, I desperately needed a printout.  Usually I start doing a printout earlier, but for reasons A – R, that didn’t work for me this time.     And printing out 780+ pages takes a) time,  b) lots of paper,  c) lots of printer cartridge, and d) even more time to punch holes in the sheets so they’ll go in the two big fat 3-ring binders that I use to move chapters around.

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Some of you will have learned from news reports that there was a shooting incident at the University of Texas early Tuesday morning.   Some of you know that UT is where I took my second degree.    Short form: the shooter fired off various rounds at the ground or in the air with an AK47, not shooting at anyone, and then went upstairs in one of the libraries and shot himself.   No one else was hurt.   He didn’t menace anyone (other than scaring them simply by firing such a weapon, and bringing on a several hours’ lockdown and the appearance on campus of even scarier people.)

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“Those Who Walk in Darkness,” written at the same time as Oath of Gold, and published in the now out-of-print Baen collections Lunar Activity (1990)and Phases, is now posted on the Paksworld website.

It did not fit in Oath of Gold, but it was a story I had to write, and it is, in a way, a connection to the new books…a sure sign that I was destined to write “paladin fallout” stories later on.

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Yesterday’s 2700+ words and today’s 2000+ have rolled over the writer-odometer another satisfying amount.   More important for your reading enjoyment, Stuff has been Happening to multiple characters, some of whom are being revealed as not what I thought they were.  You may be smarter than I am and guess earlier that X is not really X but R’.    Or not.

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Today was a 2000+ word day.   Clitter-clatter-clitter-clatter on the keys, sometimes very fast, and sometimes a half hour spent staring futilely at the computer screen hoping words would show up there before I froze in that position.

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Sometimes I’m amazed at what the Plot Daemon has been up to behind my back.  I was not feeling well for several days after the trip, and couldn’t get more than a hundred words or so out at a time.    Far below my daily goals.    (I was waking up unsure where I was–mostly thinking I was on the train, but once still in a hotel–and the writing itself was peculiar.  I knew certain scenes would be difficult, but usually those difficult scenes come embedded in their full context.  This time…not so much.)     But underneath/behind all that, the Plot Daemon was busy.

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And more or less awake after a Very Interesting Night and Day…got home finally, showered, fell into bed and am now up (sort of) after a solid 5-6 hours of sleep.

I will get to comments that need answering later–there’s business stuff that must be attended to first, and only 500 of the day’s required words were written (on the bus that replaced the train as a mode of transportation from San Antonio to Austin.  And why do luxury buses–which this was–insist on putting their otherwise comfortable seats so close together that the ordinary person’s knees hit the back of the seat in front of them?   As bad as regional jets…but more comfortable seats, I’ll admit.

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So I left Atlanta this morning and wrote 2700+ words on the train, mostly about poor (ummph, you don’t know him yet.  Let’s just say that he’s young and was brash, but reality has laid some clue-bats on him lately.   I didn’t expect he’d ever become a POV character, as he wasn’t my favorite of the available young-and-brash stock, but sometimes they simply o’er leap all obstacles to find themselves on center stage with very important lines to say–and say them with panache.  Or some word of that type.

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It’s been a busy couple of days.   Dragon*Con is always exciting, but also (for me, anyway) exhausting.   Crowded and loud (it’s the loud that bothers me more than the crowded; I should wear earplugs, probably.)  Costumes–amazing and wonderful.  I saw someone in a steampunked wheelchair…lots of people in steampunk costumes, most of them brilliantly detailed.   Aliens (some simple but cute; others wonderfully imaginative and beautifully made.

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Another day of travel, another 2000+ words added to Book III.    Maybe I should live on the train?   No, not really.   But it focuses my mind something wonderful–no phone, no interruptions (well, meals and such but nothing else) and the words come.   Scenery, too.  And interesting people when I do come up for air.  (Little do they know, the writer is watching…and listening…bwah-hah-hah-hah!)

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