Paksworld

…”Out of period!” sniffs the judge of exclamations.  “Does not fit the book.”

Well, no, but my copies of the Orbit edition of Oath of Fealty arrived today.    They’re both in the study with me where I gloat over them every few minutes.   

I’m slightly confused because my Del Rey editor told me they wanted to do the map across two pages, and to send her the map as two maps with the cut in the right place…the map in the Orbit book is on one page.   I think I remember sending Del Rey both the whole and the halved versions…

Meanwhile, back in the writer-brain, there’s an argument going on between the Plot Daemon and the Set Designer (who doubles as Costume Department.)    Set Designer wants to stop all actual writing on the story and spend considerable time (when S.D. says “Oh, it’ll just take a few days” we are talking weeks…)  with my drafting tools and a pad of paper.   S.D. was blown away by the graphics in the Temple Grandin movie, where her thoughts turned into drawings that could move.

S.D. has gotten loose before.   We spent a long time designing the Deep Space Repair vessel Koskiusko, for instance, for the Serrano/Suiza book Once a Hero.   A long time, with many happy hours spent in Corel Draw, and with pencil and pen and paper as well.    Hours during which Plot Daemon muttered imprecations down in the engine room, occasionally screaming into the speaking tube, “Are ye no done YET?”   To which S.D. replies that you can’t rush genius, every detail matters…then steps back to avoid the blast of steam.

S.D. had been reading Julie Czernada’s description of building a 3-D set for a book over my shoulder, and thinks this would be a fine idea.   Only…why not something about the size of our backyard, all to scale of course, and including everything from the Immerhoft Sea to the northern steppes, east to the Ocean and west beyond the boundary of Fintha.  With little trapdoor sorts of things, for popping up from underneath to move little models around on.   Plus larger-scale 3-D constructions of every building in certain cities, towns, and forts.  Plus ships…

Plot Daemon, I see, has found a pipe wrench and is now coming up the ladder from the engine room.  Set Designer has a steel T-square and a very large 30/60 triangle, which he’s draped with a length of iridescent silk…

I think I’ll go somewhere else for awhile.   Maybe back to fondling the books.