Paksworld

(Aside–it’s really hard to talk about some of this without spoilers for those who hate spoilers…so if you avsolutely hate spoilers, you might want to skip what’s below…)

I finally realized that I was holding back too much, for fear of spoilerisms, within the book itself, but it meant the early part of Two just did not have enough pull, or tension, at the start, esp. for those who had not read the first.  So besides shortening, tightening, etc., I introduced some of the later stuff much earlier, in casual conversation.

This group of books will definitely deal with the magelords in Kolobia, but something I hadn’t thought of until now is…are any of them Verrakaien?   We know many bad things about the Verrakai from Oath of Gold, and more comes out in Oath of Fealty, but until a day or so ago the possibility of one of the magelords in Kolobia being Verrakai had not occurred me.  What if they are?  The Verrakai are in very bad odor in both Tsaia and Lyonya.   There are occasional “good” Verrakai…if there is one in Kolobia, which is he…or she?

There are some productive changes in the early Dorrin chapters–better handling of the Council meeting, better handling of interactions with Girdish leaders (see how carefully I’m stepping to avoid the spoilers, even after the warning?)

Some alpha readers in this group have commented on the Lady of the Ladysforest seeming to be less than perfect.  Well…yes.    Since most of us can’t live twenty years without making a mistake, it stands to reason that immortal beings thousands of years old have made quite a few and some may come back to haunt everyone.  However, imperfections have to be believable, so quite a bit of work is being done from the inside out on those.

I won’t get any work done on the book tomorrow, and probably not Monday, as I’m leaving Monday evening to spend the night in town to catch the train Tuesday morning.   And there’s still Stuff to be done (like figuring out how to pack what I need for a convention, time on the train, a visit with friends that may involve hiking, and professional time in NYC, plus an opera, all into one small bag along with the computer, the papers, etc, etc.)   But I’ll be thinking and jotting down notes, and once on the train, I’ll plug in the laptop and go to work.