Paksworld

This is a small bouquet of gratitude to someone on the list who–reading the snippet–found an inconsistency with Oath of Gold and emailed me privately about it overnight.  So this morning I hauled out my copy of that book, and the manuscript, and knew he was right–it was an inconsistency and it needed to be fixed, if possible.   The book’s already past copy editing, so I didn’t know if it could, but I set to work looking for the smallest possible fix that wouldn’t mess up any other previous books.

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Via my agent’s tweet,  here’s a site with info on Limits of Power and a look at the cover.     Hurray!

Meanwhile, I’m struggling with a couple of scenes from Book V that don’t want to be written, which undoubtedly means I’ve messed up somewhere else…but still, things have to keep happening.

And so you get a snippet.

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A very irritable group of wasps descended on me today and I’m typing with a very swollen & painful left hand and various other swollen painful bits (stings on face, neck, back, hand, arm) so do not expect much response to comments or new posts until this levels out.  Usually I’m over a sting in an hour or two but apparently this many makes all of them last longer.

I must be sure to have someone stung in Book V.   Having done the research,  I should reap the benefit.

When we get to talking about something, I tend to think of comment-answers and my own comments as post-equivalents, and then you’re left without a new topic.  Sorry…you’re all so courteous and patient that I forget.  And when I forget, for that matter.

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Copy edit checking is under way.  There is muttering, mumbling, and thoughtful staring.    Marking, leaving alone, and changing.

And so on.   The copy edits were crammed into a box a little too flat and far too long,  so they were/are mussed and rumpled, but I’m smoothing and flattening and will send them back in a box that fits.

There will be a few things to talk to Editor about.   (Have I mentioned here how nice it was to meet Editor at WorldCon?  Lovely.    If I had to change Editors mid-series, and I did, I was certainly on the lucky side of the street with this one.)

There’s this maintenance thing with older bodies.   And one thing my mother told me years ago that’s both true and useful (only one? I hear a mutter from overhead.)   It’s about feet.  Unhappy feet make for unhappy cranky people.   I’ve now been to three conventions wearing only handknit socks.   For A-Kon I had only three pair.   For ArmadilloCon I had four pair.  For WorldCon I had five pair.   It made a huge difference.  Even though my feet swelled badly on a couple of days (hard floors, lots of standing, etc.)  the socks didn’t dig in and make things worse.   I’m hoping to get the sixth pair finished by NYCC, as that will be a longer trip, with fewer opportunities to wash & dry wool socks.  (These are not machine-washable wool socks.)

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Home from ChiCon7 last night, and this morning only a slight residual case of “train legs” (room still feels like it’s swaying slightly).   First load of laundry’s in the machine; second is ready to go.   And right there on the kitchen table is a big box of copy edits for me to go over.    Production has its hooks into Limits of Power now, and when I send the copy edits back, it will be on to the next stage.  But as always, there are deadlines–Production’s deadlines are hard deadlines, the kind that cause a lot of trouble if you miss them, because the next stages of the process have Limits on several other peoples’ schedules–it has a slot, and it has to fall into that slot when it’s supposed to.

Which is why, until the copy edits go back, I will be busier than ever.    Book V did make some progress while I was gone and will get some work even during copy-edit-time,  but the big deal at the moment is getting the copy edits back as quickly as possible.

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I am recovering from a bout of total exhaustion this morning after my next-to-last panel…got back to the hotel room shaky and basically unable to do anything but flop down in this chair.  At least I got the netbook plugged in before I just couldn’t get up again.  Last panel will have to survive without me.

But–ChiCon was fun, and I’m glad I got to meet those of you who were able to come (and who found me–this hotel/convention complex is confusing!!!) The chocolate–both the bar with almonds and cranberries, and the gorgeous box of Latvian chocolate–was devoured with glee (I did share the big box with others, because…well…I’d have felt guilty gobbling it all on my own.)

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