Paksworld

In the gap between sending off the revisions and hearing reactions to them,  I thought I’d discuss a few more things about Paksworld and the series you’ve been reading.  Still no spoilers for Crown of Renewal, though, I hope.

As I mentioned in a comment yesterday,  the series shifted from my original plan for a long story about Kieri Phelan to a consideration of how forced change affects people in midlife.   I began it after we’d had one, and as friends had lost or  were losing their jobs (again!, and several years after they’d just begun a recovery from the previous downturn, at a lower level)  in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.   So I had a lot of direct knowledge of how forced change–even good forced change (because that happens to some)–plays out in real peoples’ lives.   But at the same time, the invented universe I now call “Paksworld”  has its own set of rules and logic–and stories do too.  Read the rest of this entry »

A terrible pun, true.   But also true that revisions consist of more than pulling out the Chainsaw of Correction.   Sometimes revision means noticing that the arm of the statue is on at the wrong angle…and remodeling, molding it, until it looks right.  Both Agent and Editor found things to say about Crown of Renewal that pointed to the need for more remolding than chainsawing and clipping (though those did occur.)

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This will be the last post for awhile because a) deadlines and b) medical stuff–appointments, tests, all that, all taking time out of the writing day.    So I decided to hint at some things coming up in Crown of Renewal, along with the background research that went into them.   I hope this will tide you over for a couple of weeks, while I finish the revisions and the shorter work due for an anthology. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a blog post up at Orbit UK.   It relates to some things we’ve talked about on this blog.  I wrote it awhile back, and it’s only now moved to the front of the queue, but it’s apropos to the first chapter of the next book, in spades.

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As I go through Editor’s revision letter, I realize that she’s right…without the background in the Gird/Luap books,  even readers of the Deed may be adrift in places.    (And the post I wrote about this, this morning before I headed to the city for the sports medicine doc, apparently went poof–I thought I’d posted it but it’s not here.)   Anyway, I do recommend, for those who haven’t bothered with Surrender None and Liar’s Oath…or the omnibus version (The Legacy of Gird in the US,  A Legacy of Honour in the UK)  that you find a copy.  They’re for sale (the US versions of the e-books via Baen Books’ website: here’s my author page) in both hardcopy and e-book formats.

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Editor’s revision letter has now joined Agent’s revision comments and I am vanishing into the depths of Crown to work on the first level of revision, the deep structural, or foundation…and then the connection between that and the top level (some rooms, as mentioned before, are being added to the whole)…and then the top or finish level.  Read the rest of this entry »

The first week out is the week that determines (nearly always) whether a book will reach “bestseller” status.     It’s the week that agents watch over,  checking BookScan numbers regularly, checking rankings any place they can find one and making their own calculations of raw numbers v. other books’ raw numbers.   In the first week,  LIMITS sold a few fewer hardcovers than ECHOES, and a few more e-books, to wind up with a modest increase of total hardcover/ebook sales in the US market.   So thank you, all of you who wanted to and were able to buy a copy  in the first week.    Thanks for talking about the books, and introducing others to them.   You’re the ones who keep a writer in bread & butter (and dark chocolate.  Can’t forget the dark chocolate.)    Read the rest of this entry »

Lytherus.com chose me for a Featured Author Week, and the interview and blog post are now up–with a contest for copies of Limits of Power.

The interview’s fairly serious; the blog post is about the fun and the possibilities for humor while writing.

[correction of title & link, thanks to Sue]

Since several of you have pointed out mistakes in the new book, I think we need a thread for that, so I can (eventually) put an Errata notice on the main Paksworld website in a proper scholarly way (there’s a tough of sarcasm in that last phrase.  Don’t miss it.)    I’m going to keep the errata threads separate for each book. Read the rest of this entry »

So today, the nitpicking round it is ongoing, and it’s…always interesting.   Nitpicking has various uses.  One of them can be shortening a book that’s too long (too long defined by publishing economics.)   I think I’ve posted before about some of the shortening strategies.   But this book isn’t too long, so nitpicking is aimed at other goals.   Tyops of course, like that one right there.   Not just letter reversals and misspelled words, but words mistakenly typed in place of others.  “Heard” for “herd.”    “Policed” for “pleased.”  (Don’t ask how I did that one…I don’t know.   Brain burp.  It wasn’t in this book.)   Anything that sticks out as awkward, bothersome, annoying, confusing.   For instance:

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