Paksworld

After some bumps in the road (so to speak, and about which no speaking will be done)  Book consented to pick up a long trot  and make progress today.    I’ve been squiggling (technical term) through the byways of the second book to find out what was stuck in its gears, and removing same, which may be why it picked today to shake its head once and head down the trail.

I’m not sure it’s on the right trail, but it’s moving, and as Karen Pryor said about training critters, you can train something that’s moving, but not something motionless.    What’s happening?  The Count of Andressat is meeting the King of Tsaia…and I expect some jaw drops at this point.   Poor Jeddrin has gone not just around Robin Hood’s barn but many other barns to get there but he’s in possession of valuable information and so is the king, and if they put it together just right….well, we’ll see.

I’d like to get as much done as possible before the copy edits come in, but with my UK editor wanting some things done in between, there may not be as much progress as I hoped.    Today was about a thousand words–and I’m sure I’ve ripped that much of out of it since late last week. But this was true plot advance.

I am mastering “layers” (finally) and this has let me make an antiqued version of  the current map which contains most of the information that will be on the book version, plus some that won’t.  (Color helps!)  this is probably (certainly?) not the final map, as I was playing with the border feature, and haven’t yet figured out how to do wiggly lettering to go along rivers, or lettering at an angle to go with non-horizontal mountain ranges and the like.  But….

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Last night, I started playing with my map image in the computer.  What would happen if…???   Well…first of all…I got it to black on white and not black on gray.  Then…how about a nice, aged-cream background so it looks old?  And wait, wouldn’t it be nice to have it kind of smudgy, like a map that’s been used a long time?   A little airbrushing with two different colors, using a tool that let me control density and opacity brought that out nicely.  I thought of trying to add, say, a blood-stain, or a blotchy mark from spilled wine or ale, but that would take more skill than I have with the mouse as a drawing tool.  It occurred to me (but I haven’t take the time yet for this, which will require going back to pen & ink, as I would have to for the “liquid-stain” effect)  that I could “distress” the edges of this strip map, too, as if it were torn or cut from a larger map for the convenience of someone who needed only that much.

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So…the kitchen table is now covered with drafting stuff.  Three sheets of drafting vellum for a smoother surface, taped down for security.   Scanned printouts of the earlier maps in the books (one enlarged by the person who gave it to me in New Zealand last year, and whose identifying info went *poof* somewhere along the line–it’s *almost* the same scale as the Gird map) are taped to the top layer of the padding in the correct (nearly) orientation, and the working sheet is over that.  Aarenis and Fintha are now traced on.   Bits of the north coastline of Old Aare are on, tentatively.  The coastline of the north (Prealíth from the mountains to the Honnorgat, and Dzordanya north of the Honnorgat) is on (with fingers crossed that it’s not *too* different.)   Certain necessary points have been marked (Chaya, Vérella, Valdaire, Cortes Vonja (which presents the usual problem for me…which side of the river is it on???) and I’m now working on the roads.  Sort of.  Actually I’m in here posting this.

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The book has now moved from my editor to Production.   This means all substantive changes have been made, but not that everything is in it, even yet.  There’s the map, and there’s the list of characters the editor wants to include up front (I argued for at the back, but lost.   Those of you who don’t like character lists up front–it’s not my fault.   The acknowledgments are at the back.)

I worked on the map today, roughing in “the north” in pencil, then showing it to Richard, who’s one of the few people to have seen the (now lost) original.   His memory of the original is similar to mine…the new one is the right shape but wrong size.    I changed the size deliberately–the north was never detailed,  just a coastline and river.  Extrapolating from travel times between Kieri’s stronghold and Vérella, and Vérella and Valdaire, and pretending that A to B equals other similar looking distances…is not perfectly accurate.

If I put in all the detail that *could* be there, the text on the map will cover it…if I put too little, someone will have conniptions about that, too.

But whatever, I have to get the character list and map to my editor by the end of the month.  Which isn’t that far away.

The next step is that I get the copy-edited manuscript.  Writers have horror stories about what copy editors have done (tried to do, succeeded in doing) to their stories.    And did I get the style-sheet written?   Er…when would I have had time?

So it’s going to be an interesting copy-edit, all 800+ pages of it.

But after the to-ing and fro-ing that go with the copy-edit, the next stage is page proofs…and as the page proofs come to me, someone’s putting up the uncorrected proofs as ARCs, reviewer copies.   Things get exciting.

Right now, though, my attention’s on that map.    The missing-in-action background notebooks had detailed information on the geology, which I sortakinda remember, but not as clearly as I’d like.    Tomorrow, I hope to get to the good mapping-supply place in Austin and pick up larger sheets of vellum to work with.   And some new pens.    It’s going to take multiple drafts before I’m happy with it.   I’d love to do a wall-size one, but there’s not time.

My editor sent me the Oath of Fealty ms., with Track Changes on it (her changes to my work on her revision request…) and I’m almost through working on it, after having my usual battle with Track Changes.  (Not a fan, though I can see the utility of it for editors.)    No progress on the maps this weekend, through trying to do too many things at once…the Track Changes thing, an e-interview, an article for a writing magazine, the map, enough work on the new new book to keep it awake and talking to me.

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The local climate produces a dilemma…as summer approaches, it’s cool enough to go out on the land only in the early morning.

And morning is when I write best–first-drafting, anyway.   This morning, having wakened–really wakened–with a bright idea well before dawn, I fought it for awhile and then made my way to the computer.  Started writing.   2000+ words later, it wasn’t 8 am yet.   Hands were sore and swollen.  I flapped them around and ate a bowl of cereal.

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One really good thing about train travel is terrain.  Lots and lots of terrain.  Some of it isn’t useful for these books (south Texas brush country) but some will be (desert, mountains, sandstorms, grassland…)   In a car, I have to keep the car on the road and notice terrain and plants and wildlife only very peripherally (except the wildlife driving the other cars and trucks.)   In a train…though I can’t control where we go or how fast, I also don’t have to worry about it–there are tracks, and someone up front with their hands on the controls.  (Or so I’m told.)

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Sometimes any little thing I touch wants to turn into story–taking the story off on wild side trips.   This has been going on for several days, and the past couple have been productive…but I’m not sure if it’s productive of what I really need.

Still, adding words to the story is a little like adding words to your vocabulary–as the pile grows, there’s more you can do with it.

So today the book stands at 130, 236.

And Arvid, like Granny Weatherwax,  can say “An’t dead yet.”

A very productive morning, in which I’ve learned things about Andressat I didn’t know before (can the proud,  stuffy little man really be so sneaky?  Well…there’s a reason Andressat is still independent after all these centuries) and also had the crisis/climax of Arvid’s situation with the rockfolk.   It gets rather Poe-ish.   And Simyits, god of chance and luck, is perhaps not the god you want to call on, when what you need is real help, right here, right now.  The two-faced trickster has a very unhelpful sense of humor.

About 2300 words so far today, which pushes me well over 123,000.   Since I want to know what the kteknik will do next, I intend to push on a bit, sore hands or no.

LATE ADDENDUM:  busy day at the computer, even with nap: the total count is now 125,368.  Couldn’t stop until I found out if Arvid made it out alive or not.

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