Paksworld

I now have ARCs for Kings of the North in my hot little hands (the weather turned warm and muggy–hands are definitely hot.)    There will be a contest in which someone will win an ARC.   However, due to multiple instances of LifeStuff, I don’t have the contest idea worked out yet, so the contest isn’t today or maybe even this week.   It will happen, however, because I now have a prize some of you will probably want.

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When those of you in the UK started complaining about no access to ebooks of my stuff in the UK-European English-language distribution area, I went to Orbit UK, looked at their site, and then emailed my UK editor.  (I am  lucky to have two great editors right now,  Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey and Bella Pagan at Orbit UK.)    Anyway, Bella Pagan said she’d look into it, and time passed, and now I know the whole nitty-gritty story, as of her email today.

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It’s been an interesting week in the writer-as-worker world.   I did in fact meet and even exceed my weekly quota, topping 2000 words/day and ending up with a total for the five days of just over 12,000 words.  Two of the days produced really good stuff.   Three of the days produced more pedestrian stuff, but enough forward motion through the plot that there’s something to work with in revision.  Two of the days (including one that turned out very well in the end, and one that turned out OK in the end) were very, very difficult…to get started, to continue, to drag out the task to the end of the day (which was late.)

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When my first published story came out,  I was startled at how differently it read, set in a two-column layout.  I’d been worried the story wouldn’t feel fast-paced enough–but in that format, it flew by, almost too fast-paced.   That was my first experience of how the choice of layout affects a story.

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…of copy edits corrected.    There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty.

I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago.  Tired.  Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one.  Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, but the CE’s job is one of marking anything that strikes him or her as off.

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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.

Oath of Fealty, wearing stylish UK garb, lounges comfortably against the trunk of an oilberry tree, resting from the rigors of exploring the French Riviera…photo courtesy of Francis Turner:

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Many thanks to Jenn S. for  taking the book to the beach, photographing the book at the beach, and then letting me post the picture here:

Sunbathing at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

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Though I’m delighted that some of you are eager to read the next volume of the book, I need to clear up a few misconceptions about how books are scheduled and why it takes so long.

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The “coming out” party begins on this side of the pond.

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