Paksworld

This week wasn’t as productive as the week before, due to Things.    However, other than two of the Things (neither of which produced any balancing good result), Things got done that needed doing.  (Not all, by any means.)

10,020 words for the five-day work week despite one day of <300 words.   22,054 for the month of August up to this moment.   Need another 20,000 by the end of the month (before Dragon*Con, that is.)

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When you’re writing a book that covers various seasons, you’re often writing out of season.  It’s Texas in late July, and today I was writing about a Midwinter celebration somewhere in Lyonya.   The Midwinter Feast I wrote about in Fin Panir, when Paks was there, about to become a paladin candidate, or the one that Gird’s followers had all alone in that winter camp,  had covered, I thought, the ground of what Midwinter celebrations were like, and I had not expected any big surprises.

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So…page proofs are done (check) and some family LifeStuff probably/maybe resolved (half-check) and I’m back “on book”.   Yesterday, after a dietary error that kept me close to one room in the house, turned out to be a very productive writing day anyway (3001 new words, in addition to cleaning up some continuity problems I discovered while working on the proofs of Kings…no, B- did not tell his father about hmmmmmph at Autumn Court, becuase hmmmmph didn’t start until AFTER Autumn Court. when ummmm went mmmmph.  Yes, hate me.)

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Another snippet from Kings of the North today.   This may be one I posted in an earlier draft last year, but as someone said, there are people new to the place who probably don’t want to hunt through the archives for everything I said back then.    As before, there may be mild spoilers incorporated, so if you’re spoiler-averse,  don’t read beyond the break.

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I spend a couple of hours with Book III yesterday (all I had, due to Other Things) and had fun with the inimitable Arvid.   I don’t know how much of this will fit in the final Book III–but it’s such fun to write.  As with the story of the King of Pargun and his difficult daughter Elis, that we put up  on the publisher’s blog site, I’ll find it a home somewhere even if it can’t stay in the book proper.

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With thanks for your patience in the past week as I worked on the copy edits,  here’s a snippet (again, if you don’t want any spoilers at all, don’t read beyond the “read more” link.)    This is maybe 1/5 to 1/4 of the way through the book.

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Here’s a snippet from Kings of the North.   Location:  Vérella, the Verrakai city house.   Time:  Day after coronation of the young king.  Present:  Dorrin Duke Verrakai, the Marshal-General of Gird, the new Marshal-Judicar of Tsaia, another Marshal.

If you totally, absolutely, do not want any spoilers at all–including zero idea that something might happen after this of plot-significance–don’t read past the break.

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I got some work done on III today,  finishing a chapter that started out one way and ended up harrowing.    But now comes the time of hard deadlines…once out of my editor’s hands and into Production’s, all the deadlines are granitic.    Copy edit review must be done and CEs returned on time.   Other stuff’s supposed to go in at the same time or shortly thereafter.  copy edit crunch and the associated bits that must be done before getting back to III full time.   So what you’ll probably hear from me is all about other stuff, and some snippets, if I can remember what I posted of snippets from Kings before so I don’t bore you with repeats.  (Yes, of course I should note down what I’ve already posted.   But I haven’t.   Or not always.)   You don’t get any III snippets until later.

Right now, before I dive into the copy edits, we have a missing squire, a dead royal courier, a dead many-times-transferred Verrakai magelord, and once more people are looking at Dorrin mistrustfully.

…But it’s fixed now and none of you will ever know why I had to dive back into Kings of the North, fix something, email my editor about it, have her point out what was wrong with the fix, fix it again….

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…is supposed to trump youth and beauty.    But who is really old?    A half year ago, Kieri, Arcolin, and Dorrin would have said they were growing old.   Not ancient, just old.  Kieri, some of you will recall, commented to the Marshal-General (in Oath of Gold) that he was getting old and didn’t have an heir, and worried about the fate of his domain.  (He was right to worry, but for other reasons…)

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