Paksworld

The sabre and I….I’m working on it.  Getting advice online and by email, looking at videos, doing daily practice and trying to correct errors made earlier before they’re baked hard into my muscles.  Sabre practice (and research and watching videos ) takes time. I’m enjoying it.  I am learning; I’m stronger than I was the day I unwrapped Joyeux (she has a name now) , and weekly increasing the work.  That takes time.

The writing.  Trying to recapture and rewrite one of the stories from last summer, the sequel to “Consequences” in DEEDS OF YOUTH, last year’s short fiction collection.   It’s slid in and out of focus, because I’m trying to write it “whole and fresh” as if I were first-drafting.  Vague shadows of what the story was before wander across my mind, as I work on it.  This takes time.

The Real World.  Every year I prepare a report for the local county tax assessor’s office on our Wildlife Management project, as required to maintain our ag exemption.  The report includes both a required form from Texas Parks & Wildlife, to be filled out, and additional information to substantiate the report.  There are seven specific types of activities that “count” toward meeting the state standards for wildlife management, and we must be doing three of them or more every year.  I usually include 15+ pages-often 20+, of text and photographs of what we’ve done that year.  That takes a LOT of time.

And of course there’s tax stuff, and the *other* tax stuff, and the horse care, and the State of the House…

January is the month in which deadlines land like hammers on an anvil, beating on my poor befuddled brain.

However, January is also the month that my Tech & Organization specialist will be back to help for a week or so.   YAY.  And if nothing else gets in the way, toward the end of January or at least by mid-Feb, I’ll be up in Irving  by train for one night (maybe two, depending on Stuff) to meet with my sabre instructor/coach/biomechanics person,  and get homework.  Double YAY.  February 2 is Vet Day…Laci will be hauling my boys over to the vet hospital for shots,  Coggins test, dental work.

Herewith a snippet from the untitled (so far) story.   If you haven’t read “Consequences,”  these two stories are set decades before DEED of PAKSENARRION,  when Kieri Phelan gets his first independent command from the Crown Prince of Tsaia to travel with the Tsaian army to drive out Pargunese invaders in NE Tsaia.  Kieri has at this time only one cohort and has been hiring out as an auxiliary to larger merc companies in Aarenis.   Aliam Halveric put the Crown Prince in touch with Kieri.  “Consequences” is about Kieri’s interaction with the son and heir of one of the noblemen who’s brought his own levy of troops.  Duke Marrakai’s son and heir (Selis) is considered too young to fight in the coming battles, and is at the start kind of a spoiled brat teenager who thinks he’s most skilled than he is.  THIS story is about a Pargunese attack on the Tsaian headquarters…but much more about the relationships between Kieri and others, as they will develop into the future.  First, though, Selis and his father.

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Selis Kirgan Marrakai checked his appearance in the mirror again, tightened his sword belt, and smoothed the fall of his short green cape with its red braid around the margin.

“Selis!” His father the Duke’s voice broke into his worry that something—a hanging thread, a tiny spot—was wrong with his attire.  “It’s time.  Come on.”

A final glance, a final pass of the comb through his hair.  “Coming, Father.”  He left his small chamber in the tent and found his father just hanging his sword, wider and longer than Selis’s, on its belt hooks.  His father looked at him, his usual hard gaze softening into a smile.

“You look very well, Selis” his father said.  “Quite soldierly, I may say. You’ve grown up a lot on this trip; I’m proud of you.”

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