Paksworld

Thought you might like a picture of the master map on the board, ready for more lines…

Read the rest of this entry »

We moved the old drafting table over from the other house (had been my mother’s after she moved up here,  then guest-house, then son’s house for a couple of years) to what is now the spare bedroom in this house.  Only it’s not going to be a spare bedroom–it’s going to be a drawing/painting/graphics room.  The old drafting table, now well over 60 years old, is pretty beat-up, so I’m using a piece of plexiglass on top of the (rapidly delaminating) original maple veneer top.  The tilt mechanism doesn’t work anymore–my mother stabilized it with a pair of extra “legs” that fixed it at one tilt.   (Yes, I could maybe get a newer used one, or a new one, but this is the drafting table I remember from early childhood.   A “don’t touch” zone that I violated only a few times…most notably the time I used my mother’s big T-square as a hobby-horse.  Once.  The repercussions were convincing.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you may remember the posts I did last year during the Spring Revision Season, but some of you weren’t here yet, so I’ll chatter away as if you couldn’t look up the posts by category and find them (but go ahead if you want.)   Editor-revisions are basically the same as any other revision except that Editor has more experience and more clout even than DRW and Karen S- and Ellen M-.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m working on a fairly complicated little battle early in Book Three–complicated in part because it includes some weapons types I haven’t previously used in my fiction in something this size.   The forces involved aren’t matched in size, experience, or weaponry…which is sending me back to the history books repeatedly to check that I’m not doing something stupid.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Paksworld website has some new material on it–some of it you’ve seen here, but it’s moved there for easier reference.  And some has been expanded.   I had to hit my Refresh button several times (OK, once for each changed page) to see it, but there are now maps (under the Places/Maps) link, more on holidays (under the People/Religion link) and cover pictures for both the US Oath of Fealty and the UK Deed of Paksenarrion (under the Fiction link.)

Enjoy!

Drawing fantasy maps always brings up the question of how far is it really from here to there…from, say, Halveric Steading to Chaya, or Fiveway to  Valdaire?  Eager readers may try to figure out the scale of a fantasy map and thus determine what the real travel distances and times “should” be.

For some of you, what I’m going to talk about is familiar–you yourselves have done long hikes, ridden long distances, and so you know what goes into “a day’s travel.”  But for those who haven’t, here’s why the map is only a rough guide.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am mastering “layers” (finally) and this has let me make an antiqued version of  the current map which contains most of the information that will be on the book version, plus some that won’t.  (Color helps!)  this is probably (certainly?) not the final map, as I was playing with the border feature, and haven’t yet figured out how to do wiggly lettering to go along rivers, or lettering at an angle to go with non-horizontal mountain ranges and the like.  But….

Read the rest of this entry »

You know you’re in trouble with Book when you return to it after an absence which it seemed to accept, and it plunges you into a snowstorm, then gallops off, bit in teeth.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, I started playing with my map image in the computer.  What would happen if…???   Well…first of all…I got it to black on white and not black on gray.  Then…how about a nice, aged-cream background so it looks old?  And wait, wouldn’t it be nice to have it kind of smudgy, like a map that’s been used a long time?   A little airbrushing with two different colors, using a tool that let me control density and opacity brought that out nicely.  I thought of trying to add, say, a blood-stain, or a blotchy mark from spilled wine or ale, but that would take more skill than I have with the mouse as a drawing tool.  It occurred to me (but I haven’t take the time yet for this, which will require going back to pen & ink, as I would have to for the “liquid-stain” effect)  that I could “distress” the edges of this strip map, too, as if it were torn or cut from a larger map for the convenience of someone who needed only that much.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve mostly-inked the “strip” of territory that’s in Oath of Fealty.   For those familiar with the Paks books, that includes the part of Aarenis from Andressat north–east boundary roughly Cortes Cilwan, west to the Westmounts…then north over the pass at Valdaire to include Tsaia from just west of Vérella east to include Lyonya to just east of Chaya.   Because Tsaia extends  north of the Honnorgat River and Lyonya doesn’t, this means part of Pargun is also showing.

Read the rest of this entry »