Paksworld

A very irritable group of wasps descended on me today and I’m typing with a very swollen & painful left hand and various other swollen painful bits (stings on face, neck, back, hand, arm) so do not expect much response to comments or new posts until this levels out.  Usually I’m over a sting in an hour or two but apparently this many makes all of them last longer.

I must be sure to have someone stung in Book V.   Having done the research,  I should reap the benefit.

When we get to talking about something, I tend to think of comment-answers and my own comments as post-equivalents, and then you’re left without a new topic.  Sorry…you’re all so courteous and patient that I forget.  And when I forget, for that matter.

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Copy edit checking is under way.  There is muttering, mumbling, and thoughtful staring.    Marking, leaving alone, and changing.

And so on.   The copy edits were crammed into a box a little too flat and far too long,  so they were/are mussed and rumpled, but I’m smoothing and flattening and will send them back in a box that fits.

There will be a few things to talk to Editor about.   (Have I mentioned here how nice it was to meet Editor at WorldCon?  Lovely.    If I had to change Editors mid-series, and I did, I was certainly on the lucky side of the street with this one.)

There’s this maintenance thing with older bodies.   And one thing my mother told me years ago that’s both true and useful (only one? I hear a mutter from overhead.)   It’s about feet.  Unhappy feet make for unhappy cranky people.   I’ve now been to three conventions wearing only handknit socks.   For A-Kon I had only three pair.   For ArmadilloCon I had four pair.  For WorldCon I had five pair.   It made a huge difference.  Even though my feet swelled badly on a couple of days (hard floors, lots of standing, etc.)  the socks didn’t dig in and make things worse.   I’m hoping to get the sixth pair finished by NYCC, as that will be a longer trip, with fewer opportunities to wash & dry wool socks.  (These are not machine-washable wool socks.)

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Home from ChiCon7 last night, and this morning only a slight residual case of “train legs” (room still feels like it’s swaying slightly).   First load of laundry’s in the machine; second is ready to go.   And right there on the kitchen table is a big box of copy edits for me to go over.    Production has its hooks into Limits of Power now, and when I send the copy edits back, it will be on to the next stage.  But as always, there are deadlines–Production’s deadlines are hard deadlines, the kind that cause a lot of trouble if you miss them, because the next stages of the process have Limits on several other peoples’ schedules–it has a slot, and it has to fall into that slot when it’s supposed to.

Which is why, until the copy edits go back, I will be busier than ever.    Book V did make some progress while I was gone and will get some work even during copy-edit-time,  but the big deal at the moment is getting the copy edits back as quickly as possible.

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I am recovering from a bout of total exhaustion this morning after my next-to-last panel…got back to the hotel room shaky and basically unable to do anything but flop down in this chair.  At least I got the netbook plugged in before I just couldn’t get up again.  Last panel will have to survive without me.

But–ChiCon was fun, and I’m glad I got to meet those of you who were able to come (and who found me–this hotel/convention complex is confusing!!!) The chocolate–both the bar with almonds and cranberries, and the gorgeous box of Latvian chocolate–was devoured with glee (I did share the big box with others, because…well…I’d have felt guilty gobbling it all on my own.)

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This snippet is actually two snippets from a longer conversation that’s riddled with spoilers.  I picked out the bits that spoiler only one thing…and I don’t think it’s a “bad” spoiler.  However, if you don’t want to know anything at all, best not go beyond the cut.

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Off-topic in one way and on-topic in another, since part of a writer’s life includes keeping the writer’s body capable of functioning.  (Much as writers live in their heads,  all that creativity requires a live, breathing, heart-beating body to sustain it.)   I know that, but circumstances in the family have put the focus elsewhere for the past (mumble) years and I realized this year I’d stretched the elastic limits of this body’s ability to keep up without maintenance.

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This snippet reveals the way that Mikeli of Tsaia thinks about the responsibilities of a royal marriage.  There are no plot spoilers.

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A brief post bout why there haven’t been other posts (in other words, an “excuses” post)  and why next week will be blank too–but I promise to prepare a snippet or two and get them off before the next wholly blank week.

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