Paksworld

I think I mentioned that thanks to reader comments I’ve now found a way to change one of the A- names (Alured the Black) to something else for a logical reason in K-II.   Alured considers his current name too plebian and associated too closely with his criminal past, so he wants a fancier name.  He has some genealogical records that he thinks relate to his real parentage, so he picks a non-A (not his reason but mine) name from among them.

Read the rest of this entry »

No one person can do it all, in the alpha-reading world, which is why having a group works best for me.  Each of you is sensitive to slightly different things.

Overnight, I got more helpful comments.   And I’m seeing my way clear to some changes in mid-book that will of course impact end-book when they’re done.

Spoilers (some serious spoilers) below the line, so don’t “read more” unless spoilers don’t bother you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just to return to where we are, sort of…

Location: Chaya, in Lyonya, the day after Kieri arrives.  He has gone to see his cohort in the inn where they’re housed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Though Paks is not a POV character in this group of books, she’s still a catalyst and, as such, quite busy.  I don’t know everything she’s been up to, but some of it I do, and it’s been fascinating to see how she operates, as a paladin.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be spending a lot of time on a train in the next week, and the rest will be tied up in meetings and stuff I have to do as a SFWA officer.    Though I’ll have the laptop along, I won’t have much time to post to any of the blogs or reply to comments.   (Right now I should be washing my hair and packing …)

For your entertainment while I’m gone…one of the new PBS subchannels that popped up in our area has a program called AfricaTrek, where two French-speakers walked Africa from end to end, the long way.  I think the woman, Sonja, looks like Paks, at least in the face.   Your opinions?  She’s not as muscular in the upper body, and yet there she is, walking the length of Africa with a pack on her back.

Does the man of this couple look like any character in the books, to you?

For that matter, should miracles happen and someone good want to make a film of this thing (they won’t–it’s too long)  tell me who (that’s alive now) should play Kieri, Dorrin, Arcolin, and the Marshal-General.

When you hear “Dwarfmounts,” what mountain range do you think of?  Do they look like the Alps, the US Rockies, the Canadian Rockies, the Southern Alps in NZ…something else?

Most of the background stuff for Religions and Characters is now up at the Paksworld website.

The character list is not complete for past books (has none of the Gird/Luap characters but Gird himself, for instance)  but also…it will grow with the story.    It should, however, be useful now.

If you prefer a perfectly alphabetical list,  copy that one, yank out the division titles, and have at it…she says wickedly.

Religions

Characters

Comments are welcome, but the lists aren’t likely to be changed (added to, revised, whatever) for awhile, as both my web-guru and I are facing a very busy month.

A very productive morning, in which I’ve learned things about Andressat I didn’t know before (can the proud,  stuffy little man really be so sneaky?  Well…there’s a reason Andressat is still independent after all these centuries) and also had the crisis/climax of Arvid’s situation with the rockfolk.   It gets rather Poe-ish.   And Simyits, god of chance and luck, is perhaps not the god you want to call on, when what you need is real help, right here, right now.  The two-faced trickster has a very unhelpful sense of humor.

About 2300 words so far today, which pushes me well over 123,000.   Since I want to know what the kteknik will do next, I intend to push on a bit, sore hands or no.

LATE ADDENDUM:  busy day at the computer, even with nap: the total count is now 125,368.  Couldn’t stop until I found out if Arvid made it out alive or not.

Read the rest of this entry »

After a nice canter of 1400+ words this morning,  the total count is now over 120,000.

The Count of Andressat and I have had a big surprise.  It’s harder on him, as it gives him a bad case of familial cognitive dissonance; for me, it opens interesting plot vistas.   I meant to get back to Arvid today, and I may, but what’s happening in Aarenis is driving the situation that Arvid finds himself in, and I needed to figure out exactly who did what when, so the chronology would be straight.

I do hope this won’t prove to be one of those times I followed a false trail and have to undo it, because this trail has complex consequences and undoing *that* is arduous.

One of last night’s discoveries is that some gnomes traveling with a dwarf are kteknik…exiles, usually temporary, who are wearing colors because they’re being punished.   (How to make a gnome unhappy–make him colors.)  If you’re a naughty gnome (could not resist), you may be required to go do something in the outside world that is considered a fair exchange for whatever it was you did.

Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you reading my LJ last year (before this blog existed) may remember the series of plot bombs that landed on me in the last third of the book.

Plot bombs are events/characters/situations that I didn’t anticipate and that propagate new plot and lots of words all of a sudden.  They disrupt my train of thought and break things open.   But, being creative and not truly destructive, plot bombs are always–well, almost nearly always completely–right.

The first true plot bomb of the second volume exploded in my head this morning.

Read the rest of this entry »