Paksworld

Right now, I’m pouring words into the files for Book V, so I’m not keeping up with everything the Punctuation Working Group is doing….trying to check comments and email a few times a day, but not really able to concentrate on anything but stuff I can’t tell you yet.   (I should have been listening to different music…finally thought mixing Smetana’s Bartered Bride first act with Saint-Saens’ symphonies, not Beethoven.  And…it’s galloping.)   I’d forgotten the particular combination of suspense, darkness, and explosive brilliance, in that one in particular…goosebumps.  Lots and lots of goosebumps.   Just what I needed.)

Anyway, my brain’s not in pronunciation right now.   It’s in getting Book V done to “send to editor standard”.

Forgive the inattention after handing over that job, please.

Also–remember that my webmistress wants the output as a .doc, .rtf, or .txt file.  She has her own tricks for making it pretty on the website and says those are an easier starting point than others.   (Also, I can’t read docx or xcl files on my machine, so I can’t look files over before sending them on to her.)

So…I went in last night to do some late work on the book after supper (which was late)  and after typing away decided it was time to quit.   Whereupon Microsoft Word said (in my phrasing)  “I feel sick and I’m quitting and what you’ve been working on may be lost when I shut down…Too bad, sucker.”

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Today’s work finally cleared up one nagging problem and may have also improved some other things.   Well…on second thought it cleared up a couple of nagging problems, one of which is a definite untied knot, and the other of which may create new nagging problems if I’m not careful.

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Copy edit checking is under way.  There is muttering, mumbling, and thoughtful staring.    Marking, leaving alone, and changing.

And so on.   The copy edits were crammed into a box a little too flat and far too long,  so they were/are mussed and rumpled, but I’m smoothing and flattening and will send them back in a box that fits.

There will be a few things to talk to Editor about.   (Have I mentioned here how nice it was to meet Editor at WorldCon?  Lovely.    If I had to change Editors mid-series, and I did, I was certainly on the lucky side of the street with this one.)

Lots of stuff has already happened, but new stuff has now started happening at a decent rate.    I’m afraid one of the minor design elements in this volume so far is that which someone becomes comfortable with is what they realize is impermanent.   That wasn’t planned, by the way.   It’s just intruding itself into my awareness.    But not all that’s lost stays lost and sometimes what’s discarded or vanishes is replaced by something something else.

Limits of Power has many funny moments (I think you’ll agree when you get there) but so far Book V is being fairly unrelentingly serious.   I think it’s the outside world…the illnesses,  the suicides,  etc.   But a book without some leavening in it is a dull loaf of a door-stop, so it’s time I put my mind to it.   I’ve been re-reading Surtees’  Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour right before bedtime to raise my humor level and I think it’s working, though it’s not showing in the wordage yet.  Maybe I just need a recalcitrant horse. Either Multum in Parvo or ‘Ercules will do.

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Sometimes, in the past year, having some knitting to work on has helped me past story tangles.   (So far, writing has not helped me past knitting tangles at all.  Unfair!)   There are similarities.   To make progress on either knitting or writing requires putting one little thing after another: a knit stitch or a purl stitch, a word or a punctuation mark.   Untangling yarn from a badly wound ball (I wish yarn manufacturers would either make good balls or sell it in skeins) is like diving into a story that’s gone immobile and refuses to “come out.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Progress today was less than hoped, but more than feared, but unexpected in its content.   I’m fairly sure this scene won’t survive until the end.   Road-building?  Really?   Nobody’s attacked the road crew or the visitor to the road crew (yet, I say with a trickle of hope that something more interesting will happen.)   No wild animals.  No earthquakes, landslides, broken axles on the wagons, broken bones from accidents.  Nothing but sweat and dirt.    It’s not too hot, not too cold, and no storms are looming.  Yet.

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Limits of Power passed Editor’s approval (my reworking of her comments)  and heads for the copy editor on Monday.   I don’t know what the CE’s schedule is.   Since Editor did a line edit,  and has approved the variations, one would hope CE keeps sticky fingers off the dialogue, but you never know.   At any rate, I should have the copy edited pages to review sometime between the convention I’m going to on the last weekend in July (ArmadilloCon, for those of you in the Austin area), and WorldCon at the end of August.

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Editor sent me a couple of  versions of the cover for the US edition of Limits of Power–I can’t share them yet, but I liked one better than the other and hope they go with that.    I liked it a lot, in fact.   I think this will be a good, attractive cover, one that will work well on the shelves, and make most of you happy.    One of the cover characters…well…better wait.   Spoilering when I’ve asked others not to spoiler isn’t fair.   Suffice it to say that there’s no “Fabio” on the cover.

We also had brief  email discussion of some changes I’d made and others contemplated.  She’s on her second read-through and marking now, and I’ll be getting the marked ms. soon to work on.

Progress today on one chapter, not so much on another.    Quitting for the day, where the book is concerned, to work on other things.

First, the excitement:   my UK publisher’s publicity person emailed to tell me that BBC-Radio wanted to contact me, inviting me to participate in a discussion of future war.   Now I’ve done future war panels at SF conventions (the funniest, to me, was the one where I arrived just in time, in costume from having done a SFWA Muskteers  fencing demo, and turned out to be the only woman and only veteran on the panel. )   But this is different because the other panelists are not other SF writers or SF fans…but people in entirely different disciplines.    Early in the morning (my time)  on May 16 I will go to the assigned studio in Austin and all those lovely electronic connections will be made–and the other panelists and I and the moderator will dig into the topic, each in our own way.

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