Paksworld

The current story’s day or two in structural revision has made huge changes in its organization and now has it on an open track to completion as a story of approximately (after some cutting) the right length.    It’s an interesting example of the kinds of decisions writers make when something doesn’t run easily the first time.  Read the rest of this entry »

I am still not happy with the Paksworld story written for the second anthology (and the deadline daily steps closer to my nose) so I started another one.   Actually I’ve started several that didn’t work at all, either because they instantly bulged and made it clear they would be too long,  or because fitting them to the anthology requirements would warp them too badly.   But this new one has retained its potential and is cantering along briskly.  It’s too long, but that’s because I had to work out background in the course of writing it–cuts shouldn’t be too difficult.  I hope. Read the rest of this entry »

My birthday present to you is posting Chapter 2 of Oath of Fealty on the Paksworld website:

http://www.paksworld.com/excerpt-oathfealty.html

There’s also a link to Del Rey’s posting of Chapter 1, for those who are a bit behind.

This morning, Editor asked me to please write some posts for the Suvudu.com blogsite.    Sure, I said, and began fiddling, but was interrupted by a needed trip to an optician’s shop to order new glasses.  This afternoon, Editor asked me if I had any short fiction related to the new book.    Maybe something had been cut?  Maybe I could write a short-short?   Huh?  And I thought “O waily waily woe, I’m trying to write an essay (that wasn’t working well yet) and anyway I’m not good at short-shorts.”  (Yes, even experienced writers have self-defeating moments.)

And even as I thought that…up popped a notion of what might work.  Bing! Read the rest of this entry »

This snippet is from a passage that will not appear in the book–my choice, not an editor’s cut, so the scene was never fully fleshed out.  You have conversation, nothing else.   However, as a snippet, I don’t mind sharing it with you.  I believe, when the book comes out, you will agree that this and the extension of it (several more pages full of spoilers) were better left out.

Location:  Verella, the Verrakai house in town.  Time: 14 days after Kieri Phelan left Verella for Lyonya

Speakers:  Duke Haron Verrakai and his brother.

Read the rest of this entry »

Location:  in Aarenis, within several days’ march of Cortes Vonja.  Situation: night after a frustrating day of marching, barely evading an ambush, more marching.

………………………..

…his assailant lay dead on the ground.    He was a small, wiry man in short trousers, barefooted–his soles horny as goats’ hooves–his hair in a curious braid, stiff with something he’d smeared on it.  On a thong around his neck was a medallion with a design Arcolin did not recognize.

………………………..

This is part of an incident added to the part cut off from what is now Oath of Fealty and will be in the second volume of the group.   It helps fill in what had been a sketchy way to cover some weeks.     Although the forward part of the plot of the second book is moving, there’s fill-in to be done, because I was compressing the last 55,000 words when I hoped to squeeze it all into that first volume.    It was packed tight–too tight, too much left out.  This is putting some juice back in.

It was also one of those surprises, a bit of plot-stuff I didn’t expect.   It was so unexpected I had to check with a couple of people to see if the whole situation was feasible.  And it is.

Of course, the really interesting thing is  not a sailor in a tree, but who put the sailor in the tree.

Location:   Valdaire, an expensive inn, private dining room.

“And so it is, ” she said, sitting back and folding her hands on the table.  “You are the man I thought you were, once I saw past my own ambition and my own losses.  Friends?”

“Always,” Arcolin said.  “Unless of course we’re hired by enemies, but even then–”

“We have the Code, and we are content, are we not?”

“We are content,” Arcolin said.

……………………………..

Anyone care to guess the identity of the lady, and the former relationship, if any?