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The short fiction collection has a new title: Deeds of Honor. Remember how I said the cover design for the short fiction collection was tentative? It was indeed, and that design has now vanished from mortal ken (well, not exactly…) and a new rough has been shipped out for work. You’ll see it when it’s done. Some things will be the same, and some things won’t. The stories are in the hands of those who will prepare them for the collection. I am alternately working on new fiction (not ready to talk about it yet) and the head-notes for the individual stories, which I should have done in another day or so (the new title has suggested changes in the head-notes.)
Another change: I will be removing some of the early comments–enough to uncramp the host’s server allotment for us–and storing them in my own external hard drive. That process has just begun but will be slow because I’m trying not to lose any and still keep track of where I am. I’ve already goofed up once (only lost a few, I think.) ANYway. When I’ve copied a bunch of comments into my file, I will be deleting them from the blogsite. That will happen in batches of maybe 10 or so. At this time I’m planning to put each year’s comments in a separate file. Since I’m working back to front, I may get things out of order occasionally, but at least everything will be in the right year, and I can (given time) straighten it out later.
The new fiction presently running includes the possibly long (or not) story about Cracolnya I’ve mentioned before, but it stalled about where (slightly longer than) the several novel-starts in the past year. A couple of short things are ambling along at their own pace (slow. Frustratingly slow.) And there’s the New Thing, which is still too new to discuss. Except to warn you than it’s not Paksworld-based.
My vision problems are still not completely resolved, and it’s clear that they very likely won’t be. This is a nuisance, but once it becomes clear something is permanent and still annoying, it’s best to quit wasting energy on annoyance and figure out how to deal with it. That’s what I’m doing. It may mean slower writing, but it doesn’t mean quitting writing. And I’m lucky to have the vision I have, and (with this warning) time to accept that it’s probably going to get worse. If it doesn’t, hurray.
Right now, and until further notice, the collection will contain “Point of Honor,” “The Legend of Falk’s Oath”, “Cross Purposes,” “The Legend of Torre’s Ride,” “A Parrion of Cooking,” “Vardan’s Tale,” “Those Who Walk in Darkness,” and “The Last Lesson.” Some of these appeared here, or elsewhere online, “Those Who Walk in Darkness” is on my website and was previously in an earlier collection, and “The Last Lesson” is the story I read at Dragon*Con this year. The pieces that were online before, here or elsewhere, have been tweaked a bit. “Point of Honor” is an Arvid story. “Cross Purposes” is King Torfinn and his daughter Elis. Farin Cook is center stage in “A Parrion of Cooking,” and I’m sure you remember Sgt.Vardan from the “12 Days of Christmas” posts. “The Last Lesson” shows Beclan Mahieran Verrakai in old age. There’s a subtle but definite connection between “The Last Lesson” and “Those Who Walk in Darkness.”
Comment by Daniel Glover — September 18, 2014 @ 3:25 pm
I’m looking forward to, “something old, something new, something borrowed, ….” Sounds like a fine collection.
Comment by Linda — September 18, 2014 @ 6:27 pm
So have you given us a rough idea of when we’ll have a chance to satisfy our craving to get back to Paksworld and I missed it … or is it too soon to even think about that?
I really ought to start a calendar of sorts on books to look forward to. It might cheer me up when nothing on the shelves at the library looks good.
I am sorry to hear about the eyesight … and reassured that you have a reasonable attitude about it. My Mother (91) had a notion that a miracle was going to happen and refused to accept any alternative to “reading with her eyes” for years and years. My sister in law and I tried every technology we could find … but she would not give any of them a fair trial. Even books on tape weren’t right because she didn’t like the reader’s voices.
Then I found a CD of an Alexander McCall Smith book, set in Scotland, read by a gent with a lovely Scot’s accent and after listening to four or five of the series, she caved. She now gets books from the Library for the Blind and although she is frustrated when she has to ask for help doing things, at least she no longer sits in the corner missing stories.
It all started when I was trying every way I could think of to reduce my tuition bill. The college offered to pay me to read to blind students for whom there were no braille text books … late 60s.
I think we’d have a better world if everyone could have a similar experience. For me it was far more than a job, the students became my friends, and I got to realize how complex their lives were. I did things like identified the color of clothes they’d taken out of the drier, read their mail to them, and even ended up writing for the campus political science magazine because I was editing the articles one of them was writing, and it seemed more positive than just waiting around until I was old enough to vote. Being “Stammel’s Eyes” in the Dining Hall and the laundry room was my first serious lesson in seeing things from another’s point of view, and changed my life’s goals. Off track, but so many of your characters find their lives going “not according to plan” and you never seem to leave them drowning in misery, which is what I love.
Comment by elizabeth — September 19, 2014 @ 5:05 pm
Sorry, I don’t know what the timeline to publication of the collection is right now. It’s my fault, no one else’s. My brain went sploosh and I didn’t keep up with this for several months. When I know, I’ll say so. Meanwhile, besides writing, I’m still busy deleting chunks of the spam queue here and also working on the oldest comments. Not sure when that will be done either, but faster the more time I spend at it. As of this morning, the September spam stats were close to 400,000.
Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — September 19, 2014 @ 5:40 pm
Daniel, if there is a Girdish character in any of the stories, there is also “something blue”. 🙂
Comment by Richard — September 21, 2014 @ 1:31 am
I never quite gathered whether the operation on your less-good eye was going to be followed later by an operation on the other. Was it, and is it still?
Regardless, I hope for the sake of your health that New Thing is less ambitious than Paladin’s Legacy, or rather will be on a less demanding schedule.
About the tentative cover design, in retrospect, from looking closely piece by piece at what was in it, I opine it was like a group of characters whose interactions make a story, but they are jostling for Author’s attention as to whose story it is.
“At least everything will be in the right year, and I can (given time) straighten it out later” – it is nice always to have more projects for the future than time in each day.
Comment by GinnyW — September 21, 2014 @ 11:01 am
Exciting news. I am anticipating the date, when it is available.
I am sorry to hear about the vision problems, and hope that you find ways around them. God bless you during the transition.
Comment by greycats — September 21, 2014 @ 3:05 pm
Elizabeth,
I’m not sure what you had done, but after I had both lenses removed and replaced with artificial ones, my doc told me that 6 months to a year was the ordinary period of adjustment. In my case, at least, she was right. Eye fatigue is still a factor, (after a year) but I can put in a 10 hour day of reading print, computer work, reading musical scores, etc. These abilities returned very gradually, and early on I had to resort to weird work-arounds like tabbing my music instead of trying to read the score and eliminating all bold print from my computer screen. Everyone is different, of course, but I thought it might help to know about someone else’s experience with eye surgery and recovery.
Comment by Sharidann — September 22, 2014 @ 7:07 am
Trying to stop bouncing all over the place and not to howl with glee (I am at work after all)…
Quick question: in which Format shall the anthology come out ? Ebook ? Paperback ? Hardcover? Leatherbound in Verrakai blue ? 🙂
Comment by elizabeth — September 22, 2014 @ 10:10 am
Right now I don’t have much time to answer questions. If y’all could hold them until I’ve dealt with more of the spam and comment backlog, it would be a help. But I’ll answer all the current ones here and then go back to work.
Richard: I had the cataract removed from one eye. The other eye is deemed not yet “ripe” enough.
greycats: The vision problem is not simply with adjustment to the artificial lens or the difference now between the two eyes. There is a vision loss in part of the operated eye that existed before surgery–that I thought was due to the cataract or maybe astigmatism. It’s not. Many tests have been done and the best guess is a neurological problem. It’s permanent, apparently, and nothing can be done to correct it–it’s just gone, like a cluster of pixels in a computer screen. I am grateful to have the vision that’s left.
Sharidann: It will be an ebook. The ebook “cover” will look leatherbound with gold stuff on it. Paper publication might come later, depending on finances.