Paksworld

First, for those wishing for a print form of DEEDS OF HONOR.   A POD version will appear.  I don’t know when yet, or have the details, but sales were good enough in the first couple of weeks of the e-book to trigger the “How would you feel about a POD version?” question from the powers that be.  And I said “Sure, fine, let’s do it.”    More when I know more.

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It’s being a windy, sunny Christmas Day here, and I wish all who celebrate it a Merry one wherever you are.  For those with other traditions,  the same sentiment of joy and peace and goodwill expressed in your way and toward your own traditions.  Happy Holidays, best wishes for a joyful, peaceful, prosperous New Year.

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Somebody’s going to ask “So why that story and not that other one you mentioned you were writing/had written?”   Some decisions were easy.  One of the Paksworld stories I was working on came to a halt, hooves stuck in the ground, back up in a hump, neck stretched out, ears flat and would. not. budge.   It’s not a failure to thrive: it’s a story telling me I made a mistake, that’s not how it goes, and it’s not going to cooperate until I take it where it wants to go.  But it won’t tell me.  Eventually, left alone out there in the pasture, it will come wandering up to my mental cabin, climb up the step to the porch, and stomp on the porch.  But it didn’t choose to do that before the time I had to have stories turned in, so…maybe next time.

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…but the cleanup remains a work in progress.  MOST of  it was done (by sundown today) but the final packaging of leftovers for the freezer, not so much.  I sort of fell over in mid-afternoon and slept for two hours.  THUD.    We had wonderful guests, who brought wonderful contributions to the feast, and several of whom helped a lot in the initial cleaning up,  and good conversation, and a long walk on the land for most of us between the main meal and dessert, and then dessert and more conversation, until the light failed and people started for home.

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A  lot, actually.   Where we left off, the Mozart Requiem–it went well, even though I was beginning to feel off, and sure enough was sick the week following with a nasty sore throat.   Got better, and was able to sing one service the next Sunday.   We had a small birthday party for our son.   Everything seemed to be moving well towards Thanksgiving but this past week, we had some bad medical news.  My husband will need another cancer surgery–there’s a new tumor in his stomach.

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Crown of Renewal has been out long enough now that it’s OK to discuss it–and the rest of the existing Paksworld books–without needing to use Spoiler Space.

However, a question for the group: Some of you have by now read the Paksworld story “First Blood” in Shattered Shields and others of you may not have…and yet you might want to discuss it in relation to the surrounding milieu. The same is/will be true of “Mercenary’s Honor” in the forthcoming Operation Arcana anthology, and the new (and maybe older) Paksworld short fiction in Deeds of Honor. So do we need a Spoiler Space specifically for short fiction? Does it bother you as much when a short piece is discussed before you’ve read it?

With the Ebola situation that’s grabbed the attention of the country (not to mention those of us in Texas) for the past few weeks, some of you may be wondering why I didn’t throw some plagues into Paksworld. I did consider it, at one point, and as you recall there were illnesses, but a full-blown plague would have diverted the story to something else.
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Got a call today from my agent’s office, that the cover copy person is working on cover copy (the enticing description of what’s inside) for the short fiction collection. The cover design itself is “somewhere” having “something” done (I don’t know where or what yet, so the quote marks are just a hint at that.) However, this is progress. Things are moving. No schedule yet and probably won’t be until the cover’s done and approved.
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It’s not all negative.  I had a great time at Dragon-Con,  the con-crud is not (so far) really bad, and the bad writing was/is hilarious.    I don’t trash other peoples’ books in public, so I won’t tell you who wrote this gasper, only that it’s not in SF/F (I indulged my interest in another genre).   I won’t even quote it because someone lurking here would undoubtedly run it through a search engine and figure it out, after which someone (maybe a different someone) would hasten to tell the author that I trashed the book, and the author’s fans would then come hurtling down on me, and those who like internet fights would sit around cheering.  I  have a better idea.

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I’m here, but other things have taken over my time in the past couple of weeks.   The Perry indictment (Yay!) and the Ferguson, Missouri situation (@##*!!**!)  and the Border situation (#**@!!!)  and of course various international FUBARs, all of which make me wonder if the entire world has gone insane at once.

Should you want my opinion on either or both of these, the posts are up at my LiveJournal.    There are better versions of the Perry indictment’s background (all the way back to how Perry got a statewide office in the first place and his connection to Karl Rove) in an article by James Moore on Huffington Post.  The Ferguson article was written on this past Sunday afternoon and already could use some updating (as in, the convenience store did not call the police–a customer did.  The police did not even come by to subpoena the video until the following week.  So apparently the original story, that the two teenagers were accosted for jaywalking, and not in suspicion of a crime, was right.)

Meanwhile choir practice is back in session, and tonight we start rehearsals on both music for the coming weeks and large chunks of the Mozart Requiem, which may keep me sane as this mess goes on.    Next week I leave for DragonCon and will be absent for days (not taking electronics with me–they’re paying my travel so I’m flying.)    You’ve all been very good about playing nicely in the sandbox while I’ve been distracted–please keep it up.  You’re a wonderful bunch.