Paksworld

Whatever you do this time of the year,

Midwinter up here, midsummer down south

I hope you have joy and friends all around you

The taste of your favorite foods in your mouth. Read the rest of this entry »

Shattered Shields edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt will be released November 4, 2014 to bookstores everywhere by Baen in trade paperback. Read the rest of this entry »

First careful run through the page proofs  for Crown of Renewal is done, finding only three errors–the usual clean job that Del Rey’s production team delivers.  Now for the backwards pass, because I have (though not with Del Rey) found truly awful problems only on the second, backward, pass, when I’m forced to see the page differently and cannot be distracted by the story. Read the rest of this entry »

So here’s the new page on the website: the Character Gallery.    Here’s where art depicting the characters will be displayed.   First up is Arvid in his earlier days, much as he was when Paks first saw him.    I hope you enjoy this page, as it grows with more artwork related to Paksworld, mostly characters but maybe (depends)  some decorative stuff.

If you prefer to visualize characters yourself, in your own mind, no need to go see what someone else thought a character looked like–but if you enjoy others’  visual imagination, go right ahead.   I’ve commissioned several sketches from Richard Hescox; this is the first up.   Aliam Halveric will probably be next.  As he’s fitting them in between other work, it’ll likely be months between new appearances.

Since Crown of Renewal’s  covers, US and UK, are on display at their respective Amazon portals…there they are side by side for your delectation.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve mentioned before (maybe even with pictures–my memory’s shot),  I’ve been knitting socks for a little under two years (will be two years January 28, 2014.)   When I started out, I used 100 gram balls of Ella rae Classic, 100% wool, worsted weight.  That established a baseline for me and it’s proven to be a good yarn for the kind of socks I like: thick and sturdy and easy to work. Each sock used up most of a 100 g. ball; I saved the remnants, of course, and soon thought of using them to make striped socks.  Meanwhile, riding the bike in hot weather, I decided I needed short socks.  Short striped socks seemed a good idea.  The first pair used up the remnants from two pairs of red “regular” socks, plus a little blue for a single stripe. Read the rest of this entry »

What makes writers laugh?  What makes writers laugh at themselves?   Things like this:

http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/68515543753/novelist-error-messages

I’ve now looked up Maggie Stiefvater and read a teaser from two of her books, and I think I’m going to have to read one of hers end to end.  In fact, I know I am.  Because writing like that in the teaser, plus sense of humor?  Priceless.

(No, it’s not off-topic: it’s about writing novels…)

Like most writers, I have a head full of unwritten stories–only they aren’t nicely complete, something I could, with time, simply write down.   They’re like the old men who, when we moved here, used to sit on benches in front of the domino hall (no longer there) and grocery store (still there, and now including what was the domino hall, but the wide covered sidewalk is now cluttered with the ice machine, the propane tank locker, a newspaper stand, and signs, so it’s hard to even walk under cover let alone slouch on a bench and talk, as the old men used to do.

At any rate, every one of those old men had stories to tell, but they were shy of the newcomer woman who slowed down on her way in and out of the grocery store, hoping to overhear more.   A few of them (Doss and Wallace, particularly) finally relaxed enough to share some, but nowhere near all, their stories.    The characters in my head with unwritten stories have stories…everyone does…but they aren’t telling them yet, or not in enough detail that I can be sure it’s really a story and not an anecdote they want to share.  Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve mentioned before, late in a project almost anything can be a spoiler–so many clues, so many established patterns missing just one piece.  Early on, all roads are open, but by now, many of them, the ways not taken, have been left behind.

So this may be a spoiler for some, though I’ve tried not to let it be.  If you are a reader who hates knowing anything before its time, then don’t read below the break.  Stop now.  Turn around, don’t look back, ignore the rest of this.  For those who proceed, please do your speculating about where in the book this is, or what character you might know, in the Speculation Space.  Read the rest of this entry »

I have been informed that I’m not posting often enough.   I thought (hoped) that posting to comments, answering questions there, etc., would keep the natives from expressing restlessness, but that didn’t work.    So…well…I can’t say anything more about the Other Story that’s with an editor.    I can’t say anything about the story for which I haven’t decided on a market.  I can’t say anything about the ideas churning in my mind for another CHICKS anthology.  So what can I say? Read the rest of this entry »