Paksworld

I was working on the story collection this past week, among other chores, and suddenly wondered if one of last summer’s that I really wanted in, but had seemed gone for good due to a careless deletion, might have been attached to an email I sent to a friend last fall before the flash drive crashed.   And lo! there it was.  An earlier draft but there.  And in working it over again, a better ending came to me.

Until I’ve talked to Lisa, at my agent’s office, I won’t know if this is the *final* set of works in the new collection, or the final draft of the previously unpublished ones,  or if they’ll be in the same order.  (The order makes sense to me, but…not an editor.)

Final Honor.   A late sequel to “Mercenary’s Honor” (set 7-10 years after the first story) in one of the previous collections,  originally in SHATTERED SHIELDS.

Destinies.   A close sequel to “Consequences” in last year’s DEEDS OF YOUTH.

Judgment.  Longish novella, originally included in THE DRAGON QUINTET, and I think the first story that included a dragon (let alone *that* Dragon) in Paksworld.

My Princess.  A story out of deep Paksworld history, from Old Aare before the disasters there.

Valley of Death. Also an Old Aare story, but the Sandlord’s advance was already going on.

Bargains.  Very short, and my first fiction sale.

The total wordage of these is a little short, but there will be intros, and if I can find or come up with something more in the 2000 words range, I’ll add that.

But mostly I’ll be concentrating on the Horngard book.

Meanwhile, in the “out and about” section, I expect to be on the *virtual* programming list for NASFiC this year.  It’s in Buffalo, NY, in July, but I’ll be here in Texas instead.    Not yet up for that long a trip, and I’ve had a couple more falls, both apparently related to sudden dives of blood pressure.   Need to get steadier.  I also expect to be at ArmadilloCon in Austin, in early September.   More on both later.   Austin’s familiar enough that I don’t need to worry too much about falling over.

Just a couple of days ago, while organizing some of the stacks of paper, old notebooks, etc. in one of the rooms, my Organizer in Chief found a print-out of a story I hadn’t been able to find on any current storage unit…since last fall’s demise of the flash drive which had held the backup of the hard drive that self-destructed a year ago.   It was one I had planned to use the next short-fiction collection, and a hard loss, since unlike some stories, it was difficult to write and would be very difficult to *rewrite* in a way that I’d like.  I’d tried.

So Kate’s finding it  was a huge boost to my mood.   It was a photocopy of an earlier version with a lot of editing marks on it (scratch-outs, inserted words, scribbles between lines, etc.)  but it was essentially whole.  We scanned it into the computer, then took the .pdf and converted it (not without some problems…the conversion process did not like my handwritten marks!!) to a .docx version.   I’ve spent quite a few hours trying to make Word behave (!!!! to Microsoft designers of that annoying software!) and retain the instructions (double-space…not single, not multiple, just plain old double-space.  Using the font I want, not the font Word wants.  With no added space between paragraphs, an indented first line ONLY, and no sudden lurches into centered text, right-justified text, etc. etc. etc.)     It’s going to take multiple corrective runs, but at least I’ve got it.

It’s from Old Aare, when the Sandlord’s great drought was just beginning to cause social/economic upheaval and the shift of populations across the continent.  And it *will* be in the new collection and I will be glad of it.   The other “Old Aare” story in that group is the previously published “My Princess” from the DAW anthology Warrior Princesses.   Also in the new collection is “Judgment” from The Dragon Quintet, and the story “Destinies” which is a follow-on to the story “Consequences” in the previous collection Deeds of Youth.  And another one or two, whatever will fit into the word count.