Paksworld

As I go through Editor’s revision letter, I realize that she’s right…without the background in the Gird/Luap books,  even readers of the Deed may be adrift in places.    (And the post I wrote about this, this morning before I headed to the city for the sports medicine doc, apparently went poof–I thought I’d posted it but it’s not here.)   Anyway, I do recommend, for those who haven’t bothered with Surrender None and Liar’s Oath…or the omnibus version (The Legacy of Gird in the US,  A Legacy of Honour in the UK)  that you find a copy.  They’re for sale (the US versions of the e-books via Baen Books’ website: here’s my author page) in both hardcopy and e-book formats.

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Editor’s revision letter has now joined Agent’s revision comments and I am vanishing into the depths of Crown to work on the first level of revision, the deep structural, or foundation…and then the connection between that and the top level (some rooms, as mentioned before, are being added to the whole)…and then the top or finish level.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve misplaced my reference copy of Oath of Fealty (there are copies around somewhere, but…it’s Lazy Day) and cannot remember the name of the functionary in the palace in Vérella who’s in charge of the treasury.    This would be when Dorrin delivers the regalia.    I think that’s the first instance of this person showing up, but I don’t have a name in the Names file, or a title.  And though I’ve tried to go through the novel’s own master file…my eyes are glazing over.    If someone’s got a reference from one of the other volumes, that’s  also great.

I thought I’d done a post awhile back (too far back maybe) about horse gaits, but maybe it’s time for another one.   I do try to keep the horse stuff at a generalist level, but may not have. Read the rest of this entry »

The first week out is the week that determines (nearly always) whether a book will reach “bestseller” status.     It’s the week that agents watch over,  checking BookScan numbers regularly, checking rankings any place they can find one and making their own calculations of raw numbers v. other books’ raw numbers.   In the first week,  LIMITS sold a few fewer hardcovers than ECHOES, and a few more e-books, to wind up with a modest increase of total hardcover/ebook sales in the US market.   So thank you, all of you who wanted to and were able to buy a copy  in the first week.    Thanks for talking about the books, and introducing others to them.   You’re the ones who keep a writer in bread & butter (and dark chocolate.  Can’t forget the dark chocolate.)    Read the rest of this entry »

Lytherus.com chose me for a Featured Author Week, and the interview and blog post are now up–with a contest for copies of Limits of Power.

The interview’s fairly serious; the blog post is about the fun and the possibilities for humor while writing.

[correction of title & link, thanks to Sue]

Since several of you have pointed out mistakes in the new book, I think we need a thread for that, so I can (eventually) put an Errata notice on the main Paksworld website in a proper scholarly way (there’s a tough of sarcasm in that last phrase.  Don’t miss it.)    I’m going to keep the errata threads separate for each book. Read the rest of this entry »

An alert Canadian reader pointed out an error that I had missed in my read-through of the paperback.

Page 456 has part of the paragraph missing.   This is the last page of Chapter Thirty, facing the first page of Chapter Thirty-one.

Text should read as follows:

“But you’re our king,” Sier Tolmaric said.  “You’re what we hoped for, all those years since your sister died–yes, half-elf, but a man who could–who would–stand up for us.  You lived as a human all those years, not influenced by elven magery.”  Tolmaric’s expression was pleading, his hands reached out.

….As it appears in my copy, the page starts with “hoped for.”

First, thanks to all of you who’ve now charged into the book and are giving me some feedback in Spoiler Space.   I’m so glad it’s working for you!!   And to all those who use Spoiler Space to avoid spoilering the book for those whose copies haven’t arrived or who haven’t been able to read it yet because of Real Life.

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One advantage the writer has–if she gets her copy ahead of time enough–is that she can see and weep over the remaining errors before being clobbered with them by a reader.     Because a writer reading her own work when it’s hot off the press reads like a nitpicker, not an enthusiast.    Little prayers puff out of her brain: “Oh, please don’t let anyone tell me about this the first week–or tell anyone else, either.”   And, if she’s lucky, there are moments of “Yes…that worked…good…uh-huh…and that…yeah, this whole chapter’s fine.”  Read the rest of this entry »