Paksworld

Fortuitous combination: a couple of days ago,  I got my contributor’s copy of the October Writer’s Digest in which I have a (commissioned) article on SFWA.  Naturally it became the instant “in the throne-room” reading (it’s new, it’s different) and though I’m no longer a novice writer, there’s still stuff to learn.

Since I was stuck working on the Google Book Settlement mess for another couple of days, I read the other articles in the bathroom and shoved them into my backbrain where they fell into the same pot as the revisions on Book Two which had been delayed by the aforementioned Google-thing.

The two melded, revealing that the dread fungal infection of the experienced writer (the creeping mildew of self-assurance)  had indeed taken root, and my vague feeling that “something’s wrong here” was nothing more than failure of rigorous scrubbing down with mental astringent solution.   A beautifully crafted sentence that isn’t needed…isn’t needed.

As with Book One, gludgy bits are now disappearing.  “When in doubt–cut it out.”    (Yes, “gludgy” is a technical term.   Near synonym to “sludgy” but a tad gooeyer.  I am very precise in my language, she said crisply.  I would never say gludgy when I didn’t mean gludgy.)  Not a new trick for this old dog, but the same old trick I learned many years (now becoming decades) ago.

Anyway.  The beginning may undergo surgery again.  (If the beginning lags, can the rest be far behind?  Far, far, behind?)   However, let’s see a raising of hands here, pro or con, for starting with  Kieri and the Lady at the Midsummer ceremony…it takes two nights to do it properly (in between there’s other stuff, including eating, dancing, drinking, and napping on the greensward…)   and I’m wondering if I should start with the second night.

Votes will be counted but maybe not conclusive.    Final decision is mine and my editor’s.

The newly accepted alpha readers, by the way, should expect a lump in their inboxes within a few days.    Any of you who don’t have broadband should let me know, because we’re talking a 1.3 Mb file.  Word is SO bloated.

Meanwhile…within a week (I hope it’s that fast) I should be posting a complete story over on my main website.   It’s been published before but I had lost it (Someone Else had put the anthology it was in deep in a cupboard and I hadn’t seen it for years–had forgotten it in fact.  Otherwise I’m sure it would be in M0on Flights.)   It’s not a Paksworld story, but it’s almost in that tone.