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It’s been an interesting week in the writer-as-worker world. I did in fact meet and even exceed my weekly quota, topping 2000 words/day and ending up with a total for the five days of just over 12,000 words. Two of the days produced really good stuff. Three of the days produced more pedestrian stuff, but enough forward motion through the plot that there’s something to work with in revision. Two of the days (including one that turned out very well in the end, and one that turned out OK in the end) were very, very difficult…to get started, to continue, to drag out the task to the end of the day (which was late.)
As usual, writing-related tasks (not the actual writing) popped up during the week–forms that needed to be signed and mailed (another batch is here now), emails from agent and editor, phone calls, etc. Agent wanted to discuss my schedule over the next few months, the ad copy for Kings, give me a heads-up on new e-rights contracts in the mail (and now here) from the UK, and so on.
Then the non-business/non-book writing of blog entries, comment replies, email correspondence, etc., etc.
And then there are the non-writing usual activities, mostly house-related, including the ongoing (slow, but at least ongoing) effort to un-stuff the place.
However, on the whole, a successful week. Today, Saturday, I probably won’t open the Book III files–I’ve got part of a beef neck stewing, and it will need the meat pulled off the bones in a couple of hours, need to make bread, need to do laundry, and definitely need to fill another two feed sacks with stuff to be put out for trash for Monday pickup.
Comment by Adam Baker — August 8, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
Glad to hear that things have settled back down into a steady rhythm.
I did have a question that I thought about.
What does attending a convention, such as the upcoming DragonCon, do to your schedule? Do you try writing at all during any downtime you might have while at a convention?
On a side note, I had really hoped to be able to attend DC this year, and hopefully have my copy of Oath autographed, but it looks like once again that real life issues are going to keep me from being able to attend.
Comment by elizabeth — August 8, 2010 @ 3:39 pm
Conventions are always a hiccup in the schedule. There’s the getting ready (oops–need new slacks–go shopping–hem them–packing) and the travel time to the con, and the convention itself, and the travel time back, and the recovery period. If I get sick–it’s longer. Depending on the density of my schedule at the convention, I can sometimes squeeze in a little writing time, but usually no more than notes-to-self. And that’s a reason I cut back–I was getting sick too often, losing a week or more from that alone–and always felt rushed and tired. Working on these much-bigger books, there’s not the wiggle room in a yearly publishing schedule that there was with the shorter ones.
Airline travel, especially, has become so unpleasant–and denies me what I need to travel comfortably and stay healthy–that I’ve now switched to trains. Trains take longer, but aren’t as exhausting, or as crowded, and when I take a sleeper (as I’m about to do again) I can work in my roomette, computer plugged into the train’s power supply, headphones on, and really get work done (tested early in 2009 on trip to California) and no one interrupts me. I can use the restroom whenever I want, get up and move around when I need to. I get real food in the dining car, and meet new people during a meal. It’s not nearly as stressful and I arrive rested. Since I’m not crammed in with a lot of people (even coach, there’s much more room than on a plane), there’s less chance of catching something, and being more rested and less stressed means I’m less likely to catch con crud.
I went by train (coach) to a con in Dallas this past winter–vastly better than driving up I-35 (gorgeous snowy scenery on the way up) and not that much longer than flying, counting the time to drive to the airport, hang around until the plane leaves, land, get my luggage, etc. And since there’d been the big snowstorm, many flights were canceled anyway and I would’ve had to drive on snow and ice part of the way.
I don’t expect to get a lot of work done at DragonCon (in addition to programming, I’m meeting various people) but certainly will on the train to and from. If I can avoid catching something, I’ll lose one or two days at each end (the trip home has a very awkward middle-of-night connection in San Antonio from the Sunset Limited to the Texas Eagle) but not more. I was amazed at how much I could get done on the train on the California trip, and then last fall on the long, multi-stop trip to and from NYC.
Comment by Adam Baker — August 8, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
Ah, hadnt thought about traveling by train. Thats something Ive always wanted to try, but I havent ever done a great deal of traveling, and what little long distance travel that I have done, we had to drive it (like moving from California to North Carolina). Maybe eventually I’ll get to take a trip where I’ll have the time to be able to do it by train.
Comment by Genko — August 8, 2010 @ 7:52 pm
I LOVE traveling by train. Went to California and back last fall — 18-hr trips both ways, and didn’t get a sleeper, didn’t get much sleep, but still would take it over a plane any time. I will have to get on a plane this fall to go to China — no way around that one, I suppose. I don’t travel all that much, but I’m completely sold on the train.
Comment by Louise H. — August 9, 2010 @ 2:04 am
Me too, me too. Travelling by train is CIVILISED. No rushing, no crowding, enough space. I live in the Netherlands and treated myself to a first class trip to Paris on the Thalys train this May. It was heaven! I took a cab to the train station in my hometown of Leiden, got on the train to Schiphol (15 min) boarded the Thalys at 08.30 and was in Paris by noon. You get breakfast and seconds and any coffee / tea you want. Newspapers, magazines all provided. You can plug in your laptop if you want and no one cares what luggage you bring. On the return trip I got a very nice dinner and a small bottle of wine out of it and by leaving Paris at 19.30, I was home and in bed by midnight.
Unfortunately I cannot take the train everywhere so I had to fly to Tenerife in March, but that meant Oath went to the Canary Islands with me. I picked it up from my wonderful bookstore in Amsterdam the night before I left, had to leave work to get it and then went back to work to finish stuff. I had just stumbled on Oath at the Amazon website that day and thankfully my bookseller, being renowned for its excellent SF/Fantasy selection, had it in store and hadn’t run out of it yet. I just loved it! I had been rereading Deed over the years and could’nt believe my luck.
Thank you so much Elizabeth for giving me the chance to extend my visit to Paks’s world from now on. Only, having to wait a year for the next book? Ouch!
I wonder whether your publisher would consent to publishing one or two chapters online? On Amazon there is the option to “look inside the book” and I absolutely love it. I buy the books anyway, but this is like an appetizer to stave off hunger until the main course becomes available.
Just one question, you called Lieth the youngest of the squires in Oath, but I think in Deed it was Suriya? Also, when Paks wanted information about Kieri I think she was told to talk to Arcolin who had been with the Duke ever since the Duke got Arcolin away from the Tsaian royal guard. Does this mean that the royal guard admitted foreigners, like a kind of papal Swiss guard? Otherwise, there is a bit of hiccup in the storyline in Oath, now claiming that Arcolin is foreign, not Tsaian. I will check Deed again to make certain, I did not mix it up.
Comment by Dave Ring — August 9, 2010 @ 1:25 pm
A bit more than a page into chapter 11 of Oath of Gold, Stammel to Paks, “You talk to Arcolin, now. He was our Duke’s junior, hired away from the Tsaian Guards, when he first came to Tsaia. Siger knew him before that; he was one of Aliam Halveric’s sergeants in the old days.”
Comment by elizabeth — August 9, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
Arcolin’s past was a bit confusing even then. I knew he’d originally been hired in Valdaire, when Aliam Halveric used to hire a lot of his soldiers in the south (Lyonya not being a big soldier-nursery, so to speak.) I’m not sure Aliam knew where he came from, or what he was heading away from. I’m fairly sure Kieri never asked. He’s a little younger than Kieri, a little older than Dorrin. So he was probably hired while Kieri was at Falk’s Hall getting his training as knight. Aliam might (only might) have suggested that he go to Tsaia, and see if he could get advanced training there, or perhaps done that because Kieri, once out of Falk’s Hall, had gone to Tsaia himself to make a name for himself…Kieri was not in the Royal Guard himself, but did small contract hires for them, and also for other lords (filling out their muster when they needed more for another row with the Pargunese.) If I could find printouts of, or get into the old files, there’s a lovely bit about Kieri’s service in one such war, when he had been hired directly by the crown for the first time, rather than as part of someone else’s muster. He didn’t have a horse of his own–led his troops on foot–but ended up close friends with the Marrakaien and a hero–soon was granted land. But anyway–I don’t think he had a junior captain at that point.
Comment by elizabeth — August 9, 2010 @ 9:27 pm
Yes, the Tsaian Royal Guard hires foreigners at times. Long peace, fewer foreigners. When Kieri was a young man, there was a lot of border warfare with Pargun, and more hiring of outsiders.
And yes, I make mistakes. Despite having written the first books, and re-read them repeatedly before and while writing these new ones, I miss things. I SO wish I had found the old reference notebooks, which I kept because I knew I might need them someday. (Safe place. They were put in a safe place. ARGH.)
Comment by Louise H. — August 10, 2010 @ 1:38 am
Yes, safe places are so safe no one can find anything anymore, including the one who put stuff there. Learned that one the hard way myself.
Anyway, hiring outside soldiers does make sense, for, as Kieri and others said, a standing army is expensive.
And I can see Arcolin seizing the chance for more soldiering and experience with Kieri once the major fighting in Tsaia was done. He probably saw the RIF’s coming as well.
Comment by elizabeth — August 10, 2010 @ 7:09 am
Kieri would naturally have asked Aliam for advice, and Aliam would’ve remembered Arcolin. I think there was a multiple recommendation going on there.
Comment by Chris — August 10, 2010 @ 11:54 am
You mention “If I could find printouts of, or get into the old files…” I hope you have been able to make the rounds of computer experts to see if they can read the old files — it’s harder if they’re on 5+1/4 inch disks or something of course, but if the files themselves are the problem, I’d think there are people out there who could at least get you a text file out of what’s there. It’s likely to contain some gibberish but you could probably read it and retrieve those perfect(;) bits of old text. (It’s never the same when you have to try to write something again because you’ve lost the original.)
Re: safe places — I’ve often said I wish my house had a “Search” function.
Comment by elizabeth — August 10, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
If my house had a search function (rather than the inefficient self) I’d want it to be better than Windows’ or Word’s search function.
Comment by Mike D — August 13, 2010 @ 9:42 am
Quote 7th August
“Agent wanted to […] give me a heads-up on new e-rights contracts in the mail (and now here) from the UK”
Which gives me a opening for a diatribe NOT about e-book DRM/ encryption but about a later and more recent problem, Geographical Restriction on e-book sales.
Thus, if the usual pattern has been followed, Elizabeth has sold exclusive North American e-rights to Del Rey and exclusive GB rights to Orbit. A reader in Norway, India or New Zealand would thus be unable to buy Oath of Fealty as an e-book at all, though Deed, being from Baen with no DRM, is available world-wide and such a reader can get the OoF dead-tree mailed to them as hc or pb.
I’m in GB and find this kind of thing especially vexing when there is no prospect of a GB publication or when the e-book is priced higher than the dead-tree or when the format wars means it is unreadable on my e-book reader.
In money sales terms this is a tiny matter so the suits and their lawyers are not interested, however, my amateur suggestion is that the e-rights granted could be extended to non-exclusive English language sales in the rest of the world.
It may be that such ideas are already in prospect but every little helps
Michael Dolbear,
Little Egret in Walton-on-Thames
Comment by elizabeth — August 13, 2010 @ 11:20 am
How many readers actually contact *publishers* about this kind of thing–the ones who could actually do something about it? Competing readers, competing file types, etc, etc. weren’t thought up by writers, and aren’t writers’ fault. If you want a universal platform for reading text, it’s called a book–the dead-tree kind. If you want digital to match the durability and universality of paper books…hassle the software & hardware developers, and the publishers, not writers.
At the moment, e-rights are about the least-negotiable section of a book contract. All the publishers are finally seeing some actual income from e-publishing and thus are unwilling to give up any of the potential. (I just signed Orbit contracts to put out the e-books in their part of the English language market–which is not UK alone, by the way.)
I understand readers’ frustration in not having what they want, when they want it, at the price they want to pay, wherever they are in the world. However, here’s a diatribe back at you: the globalization of publishing will not benefit writers, in terms of access to publishers, and in turn will not benefit readers who want a variety of books by a variety of writers.
Already some publishers are demanding world English language rights so that they can have e-rights for the world. You would love that. But consider: for writers, the existing separate “zone” markets mean that if your work appeals more to NA readers (but not UK-European readers) or the reverse, you have a chance at those specific markets through rights-separated publishing houses. You can be profitable for a publishing house within that market; your readers will be happy.
If, however, you’re having to sell to a global market–where publishers will be looking for work that will be profitable over the whole English-speaking market–and you’re a great seller in the UK but a poor seller in the North American segment–you’re going to be SOL. You will have half the places to sell your English-language rights–half the editors who will ever see your work–and those publishers and editors will necessarily have a different slant than they do now.
Moreover, since most publishing houses are now affiliated with much larger multi-national corporations–with publishing the least profitable segment–the existing concentration on “the numbers” will continue and even increase. Just a few months ago, a writer in a closed writer listserv reported that the new contract required the writer to sell all English-language rights–and that new submissions were being judged on that basis.
Monopolies are not good for writers–or, in the long run, readers.
Comment by Mike D — August 30, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
Thanks for the very interesting background on e-book rights in publishing contracts.
Universal rights would solved the problems of readers in Norway having no access but the unwanted consequences might suck, yes.