Paksworld

OrbitUK  has me in their Author Spotlight this month.   I’ve also been told my author copies are shipping this week.  Yay, hurray, and rejoicing by writer (esp. with Book IV about to head for the big city.)

For US readers,  the mass market paperback of Kings of the North is coming out very soon, and the hardcover of Echoes of Betrayal releases February 28.   Even better (for those who still buy hardcover books) I’ve been told it will be on the Random House Triangle displays at Barnes & Noble.

Now I really must get back to work.   It’s kind of like the cross-country of three-day-eventing….you have to ride the whole course, including the last fence.

What I think (and devoutly hope) is the last pre-submission scene to be ripped up and rewritten was finished this morning by 10 am local time.    I was writing like crazy until 2:45 am when I pretty much froze up, joints and brain together, and started again this morning at 7:30am.  You are reading the typing of a very tired writer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because I mentioned the existence of this thing in a tweet to Tanya Huff (whose Valor books are favorites in this household) , and she and another asked for it to be posted somewhere…I dragged it out of obscurity, corrected a couple of typos, wrote up a brief explanation of its origins and…posted it on the Paksworld website.   Here’s what happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chapter numbers.   Chapter numbers don’t go on until I’m sure all the chapters are there, in the right order (OK, MOSTLY sure.)    Before that, chapters have a title, such as “Chapter: Kieri & Elves Talk History” (not actual title.)  That way I can use a search on “Chapter” to find the beginnings of chapters, and the title tells me if I have the one I want.  Chapter numbers change during the writing, as I may be off-chronology.    Chapters are numbered now, all forty-one of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you have over a million words of fiction set in the same world, you’re very likely going to have a lot of characters and those characters need names.   The names have to fit the world, and each other.  In real life, many people may have the same name (which is how the innocent get blamed for crimes they didn’t commit): there are dozens of Elizabeth Moons across the country, with at least one in most states and at least nine in Texas.   But in a book (as I discovered in my first one, when I didn’t know better) readers expect one name per character and one character per name.   They need those names to be easily pronounced (and “easily” varies with the reader) and distinctive.

Read the rest of this entry »

I think it’s in Oath of Fealty, but maybe in Kings of the North–at one of the peerage ceremonies–there’s mention of the other duke, the one who’s old and feeble and doesn’t ever show up at court anymore.   Apparently I put his name down somewhere other than the “Names” file and now I can’t find it.    It’s not Serrostin, Mahieran, Marrakai, or Verrakai.    It’s something else.  I need it again.

Help!  (And thanks, whoever finds it!   I’m finishing up scenes I hope will be final…)

Episode 12 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 11 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 10 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 9 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

Read the rest of this entry »