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Echoes of Betrayal has a new cover for the paperback edition coming early next year. I liked the hardcover art, but this is a very strong cover that will show up better on the smaller format.
It’s really special to get a new cover for the paperback, so I hope it behaves appropriately, leaping off the shelves and into backpacks and purses and pockets. YAY!
Meanwhile, book V. At some point in the past couple of weeks, a file has gone walkabout (or never existed except in a dream) so I’m reconstructing a scene I was very happy with. This is not as much fun as you might think, since for me, the best results come from writing in full spate. Trying to recapture the scene and write it again…usually kludgy.
Also, Arvid’s fan club will be glad to know he is still stirring things up, and is presently disturbing the equanimity of a stiff-necked Marshal-judicar who distrusts charm, eloquence, and most of all, former thieves. Arvid now realizes that it’s not always (or even often) wise to upset such people, but it’s such fun…
I have recently been reminded by real-life events of the sort of people on whom Ganlin of Kostandan was modeled, which makes me want to smack Ganlin and tell her to quit it. I’m afraid she’s too set in her ways to change without a crisis of some kind. Still, I need to let the effect of those people wear off before I work on her next scene again, or I’ll write her without any compassion at all, which is never a good idea.
The head cooks in both Verrakai domain and Chaya are entirely too much fun to write and I’m having trouble holding them to their minor (MINOR, I SAY!) roles. It’s Book V, I’ve explained to them. There’s no more r0om for more major characters and a plot arc with you in it. “Everybody has to eat,” says one. “You won’t get far without food.” “The kitchen is the heart of the palace,” says the other. “Everything that happens, happens here too.”
Other not-major characters are now coming up to the writer waving the script and saying that they’ve worked hard the whole series and surely, surely I remember I promised them a center-stage place at least once and now….SIT DOWN, I say firmly. Not everybody has a solo. Not everybody gets to pirouette on toe, center stage, with the rest of the dance troupe fluttering nearby. You and you and you and you….you’re bit parts, spear-holders, anonymous, and you’ll have to show cause in a later book or books why you’re capable of more. Somebody slams down a helmet and says “I quit!” and stomps away. I shrug and cross the name off on the roster…Guard #3. Fine. Somebody to stand motionless for a half hour can be hired off the street. The woodsfolk, of course, understood this earlier and are happily showing one another the one gold piece they stole from Arvid’s pack even as they “helped” him load the horse…a matter of honor. They knew he’d expect that. Various soldiers, innkeepers, servants, etc. have gone back to whatever they were doing without rancor. It’s only some of them I’ve got yammering at me. Plus the ones I wish i could fit in…the quiet ones with wistful eyes.
But…enough of that. Forward, excelsior, damn the torpedoes… all that stuff. Scenes are waiting to be written.
Comment by kristen — July 9, 2012 @ 4:26 pm
Your posts always make my day…thank you! I so enjoy your insights about favorite characters as well as the writing process.
Comment by Richard — July 9, 2012 @ 5:28 pm
That cover is a neat companion to the Kings one.
Comment by Elizabeth D. — July 9, 2012 @ 11:55 pm
The cover art is great. I hope that it flies off the shelves.
I’m glad that Book V is coming along, and even though you spent double time on a chapter, I hope a back-up file turns up somehow.
The rest of the characters: I am reminded of the upstairs-downstairs kinds of stories. I liked the downstairs folks in the early Paks books, not just as contrast to the Duke, but because their organization showed how much sense the Duke had at the time compared to everybody else.
Cooks might have been offended (and ready to go on strike) because of what happened at the end of Echoes: it wasn’t their fault, and they want space to tell their side, as long as it is equal space to the rest of the book… I can just about hear them now. On the other hand, I always liked the insights of Gird’s wife, and the wisdom of the master cooks fits in with the wisdom of those who help things grow and heal the Taig, and a little might balance all the crowns. But it might be for another book I guess.
I’ve put my own cooking skills away (mostly) for the summer: too hot to cook inside or outside for me. We are praying for the end of our drought. My husband is on a new chemo that causes his skin to break out, and he is supposed to stay out of the sun. He is still in a holding pattern. To cool off, we went to a movie Saturday, and at the very end of the credits, it stated as usual that everything in the movie is fictional. Since it took place in a major city and used locations that do exist, does that mean that city is fictional? I think my mind was fried.
Comment by Annabel (Mrs Redboots) — July 10, 2012 @ 12:52 pm
I rather like Ganlin – she just needs to grow up a bit, and isn’t that happening while she works hard at Falk’s Hall?
Comment by Jenn — July 10, 2012 @ 2:52 pm
I think you should remind the extras that there is a lovely break-room with free sib constantly flowing. Paks herself has frequented there ever since she rode off into the sunset in book II. There are even knitting patterns being swapped by some of the younger housemaids vying for a certain squire’s attentions. And I hear there is a support group for barmaids who have loved and lost a tall dark thief.
Comment by Iphinome — July 10, 2012 @ 3:26 pm
@jenn is there a karaoke machine?
Comment by elizabeth — July 10, 2012 @ 5:41 pm
Iphinome: Only in the evenings, when the “pub-side” opens up with appropriate beverages; there’s a “quiet side” for those who want to spend the evening more quietly and wait for friends on the late shift to get off. Hours are irregular–depends on that dratted Writer, who sometimes throws up her hands at 5pm and sometimes not until 1 am.
Jenn: I’ve heard rumors from the break-room about a conspiracy to unseat the Writer and take over the book themselves, but on the promise of fresher pastries and a corner of the place stocked with yarn from As Ewe Like It, and another corner stocked with “books that dratted Writer didn’t write” and a LOTR chessboard, the conspiracy dissolved. So I was told.
Comment by elizabeth — July 11, 2012 @ 6:52 pm
OK…who thinks they know who the faces are? Anyone?
Comment by Iphinome — July 11, 2012 @ 7:07 pm
Stammel in the back Beclan in the front Dragon next to the title and just outside the image Arianya holding a cookie jar trying to bribe me into converting.
Comment by elizabeth — July 11, 2012 @ 7:25 pm
Yup. Beclan should be brown-haired, but it makes a better cover this way–contrast, etc.
Except Arianya doesn’t even know about you, so she’s not after you. For the head of a religious group that’s otherwise into proselytizing, Ariany’s not really into that…and even when she is, cookies aren’t involved.
If you want a cookie-conversion, you need to taste Farin Cook’s special chewy squares. I wish I could bake them, but the ingredients here aren’t the same. I can taste them in my imagination.
Comment by Iphinome — July 11, 2012 @ 10:28 pm
So Arianya was a low blood sugar induced hallucination? I’ll buy that.
Comment by GinnyW — July 12, 2012 @ 7:26 am
I like the cover. I would buy it, except I already have the hardcover. Sigh. And too few bookshelves.