Almost two weeks on (!) I surface from the Sea of Words - the Pontus Logia - to say what a swell time I had at Conjecture 2009; met many amazing folk - organisers, readers, writers and editors alike - though no one from here (thank you for asking Portals). Apologies to you Klesita for not letting you know earlier, would have been great to meet you - I could have answered you questions that are still rattling about my noggin, directly... How about I do so now anyway.
The one most on mind is...
One of the things that intrigues me more is how Clementine, been so far away from everywhere and more over been so far inland, became a centre of power. Most centres of power become that because their position is strategic in one way or another. What is strategic about this place?
I must admit when I look at the placement of Clementine/Benevente on the map I do scratch my head a little and wonder how it got to be so powerful. Its strategic significance is not nearly as relevant in the current (MBT) period as it was at the time of Dido and her most immediate heirs when that central portion of the Half-Continent was full of refugee peoples from the arrogance and subsequent collapse of the Phlegms. Clementine's current significance is that it guards the only passage across the great rift the Marrow and is the historied home of Dido's line, preserved now more because it is convenient for the member states to have it that way rather than its actual strategic importance. Does that help?
Alyosha has a triplet of inquiries still outstanding:
1) Near the beginning of the first book Fransitart says to Rossamund, “Say yer prayers and clean yerself afore th’ meal.” Never after, however, is there any mention of prayers, priests, religious beliefs, etc. Are there religions in the Half Continent? Do folks worship the emperor, Roman-style, or do any of the claves have a religious character?
Do you know, this is the hardest aspect for me in the whole invention... To put it simply folks worship any manner of things: Providence (not very common any more), the false-gods, monsters, ancient and potent therimoir swords, the heldins, an idea (re: many of the calendar claves). The most prevalent "religious" position of most Soutlanders is like a humanistic atheistic cross with certain superstitious fears of monsters.
2) The patrolled portions of the Wormway are dangerous, the lampsmen regard the Ichormeer with fear, and even the far-traveling Europe has never followed the road past Haltmire. In your Explicarium you tell how the family of the Warden-General of Haltmire perished due to wandering just a little way along the Wormway into the Ichormeer. Does anybody actually travel through the Ichormeer from Haltmire to Worms?
Not very often, no. In fact it requires a concerted effort to effect a full traversing of the Wormway, and the passage through the Ichormeer was a great military undertaking, lead by Imperial Engineers.
3) The origin of the lahzars is shrouded in mystery; but, an origin there must be. One of the other mysteries you weave into your story is the sad, strange tale of Biarge the Beautiful, and I wonder if the two mysteries are related – if Biarge’s mad experiments to save Freyr are in some way the source of the dark knowledge that birthed the lahzar-creating surgeries?
Hmmm... I like where you are heading, sir...
Now to dear Headtrip Honey, niggled by a couple of questions:
You stated somewhere that you imagined Europe to be about 29. In Lamplighter, we learn that she and Lady Vey were at school together (the calendar-training one). And we also know that Threnody is around 13/14. So how old is Lady Vey, and how old was she when she had Threnody? Because their being schoolmates would suggest she is close in age to Europe (although I suppose it doesn't HAVE to be so), and 29 would be awfully young to have an almost 14 year old daughter.
I have revised my sense of Europe's age just a little since penning (and now re-penning) Book 3, shall we say somewhere betwixt 29 and 33ish. Either way, her contemporaneous attendance with the Lady Vey at a calendar clave does not automatically mean they were/are the same age. Claves are not schools - people from all paths join them - and even schools in the Half-Continent do not function the same way as we find familiar. As for her age when bringing forth Threnody into the world, the Lady Vey was quite young, though certainly not 15.
Her second question is much simpler:
How does one pronounce Threnody's name?
THREN-uh-dee
(capitals indicate where to stress the word - I can perhaps hear certain more North American folks possible calling her 'thren-OH-dee'; that is not how I hear it in my noggin or say it, but then again I am Australian...)
Please, keep "overthinking", ma'am...
Excellent queries (as ever). If I failed to answer one of yours, could I ask you to please ask it again...? Now, back to editing for me...
Conjecture 2009
I am surfacing from my Pit of Editing [TM] (cesspit, maybe...?) to let those of you in the Adelaide vicinity know that I will be doing a reading and what they call an 'author appearance' on Saturday 6th June (this Saturday!) at this year's Conjecture Spec Fic convention.
Details as follows:
Saturday 2:30 - 3:30
1st floor Holiday Inn, Hindley Street, Adelaide
...then at 5:30 at same venue I will be helping to launch Richard Harland's most excellent new truly steampunk offering, Worldshaker, a novel definitely worth your time to read (I liked it so much they put what I thought of it on the cover). Along with this book I cannot recommend highly enough Richard's WritingTips website. You can even download a .pdf of the entire document for free FREE FREE from the site. Richard is an absolute legend for producing it, so go see, please! It is an veritable mine on the whole process of this thing called writing, from getting going to getting published - I have certainly learnt a thing or twenty from it.
Lots of excellent folks will be there all weekend, so, please, if you are able, come along.
(Apologies for short notice & to those who are unable to come even if they wanted to because they happen to live in another city or country...)
... Oh, & I will get answering on your excellent previous post questions very very soon, honest.
Details as follows:
Saturday 2:30 - 3:30
1st floor Holiday Inn, Hindley Street, Adelaide
...then at 5:30 at same venue I will be helping to launch Richard Harland's most excellent new truly steampunk offering, Worldshaker, a novel definitely worth your time to read (I liked it so much they put what I thought of it on the cover). Along with this book I cannot recommend highly enough Richard's WritingTips website. You can even download a .pdf of the entire document for free FREE FREE from the site. Richard is an absolute legend for producing it, so go see, please! It is an veritable mine on the whole process of this thing called writing, from getting going to getting published - I have certainly learnt a thing or twenty from it.
Lots of excellent folks will be there all weekend, so, please, if you are able, come along.
(Apologies for short notice & to those who are unable to come even if they wanted to because they happen to live in another city or country...)
... Oh, & I will get answering on your excellent previous post questions very very soon, honest.
The stages of editing.
I thought it would be simplest to show you the very beginning of Lamplighter. I will make some comment on each version but will let them speak for themselves - my hope is that when you click on an image it will show it at a better, more readable size.
Please, ask any questions you like.
As you can see my initial beginning was markedly different from what we now have in the book. My first thought was to start the very next day from where Foundling left off. I am glad that I did not. The where to begin a story is one of the big challenges in writing. Apart from this, other problems clear to me (now, at least) are a/ that Grindrod is unrealistically harsh & b/ the excessive use of capitals for his voice.
Please, ask any questions you like.
As you can see my initial beginning was markedly different from what we now have in the book. My first thought was to start the very next day from where Foundling left off. I am glad that I did not. The where to begin a story is one of the big challenges in writing. Apart from this, other problems clear to me (now, at least) are a/ that Grindrod is unrealistically harsh & b/ the excessive use of capitals for his voice.
Next is the proper beginning to the story; it is bloated and clumsy - but that is the nature of my first drafts for you... The comments on it are made by the fair hand of my publisher, Dyan Blacklock.
The change from first to second draft is hard work but seeing the better, tighter story emerge from all the pain is a genuine joy. The scribble in green is my own hand as I continue to improve the text - all those little details and tweaks that feel make the tale a whole lot better.
This final stage is what are called pages. It is the properly typeset book printed out on ordinary A4 paper for me to go over for any final and usually small corrections. I, however, made some significant changes - as you can see by the highlighted text, which, if memory serves, was shifted and cut. If you get out your copies you shall see what I mean. This is not normal at this stage, of course, but most was agreed to by my editor (the purple penciled Celia Jellet), for it indeed made the whole work again that much better. (I paid for the re-typesetting, btw - 'tis only fair...)
There you have it! Just like that. This book writing thing is easy!
Also Gareth of Falcata Times asked me to point you all to their review of Lamplighter, which fits well with this post, the final end for this whole process: people reading it and even reviewing it. Thank you, Gareth!
For breakfast today I had porridge with sultanas and a cup of Irish Breakfast tea.
A poll for you...
Just put up another poll for your pondering (just scroll down a bit)... more substantial posting coming soon.
Still here! Still here!
Just in case you thought I had shuffled off somewhere, I am still about, honest, being very preoccupied about editing (actually a major rewrite - you should see all the green pen scribbled over each page, the inserted pages with even more green scribblings) and slack about blogging.
I heard once that you need to post at least once a week to be considered a real blog, so I don't know where that leaves us...
Just thought I would acknowledge that "clede" (a corruption of Mr Hranac's 'cledu' verificon word) meaning a country dance, and most likely "verger" (coined by Alyosha's daughter) meaning a builder of fortifications, might well have a place in the Half-Continent. 'Tis a bit perplexing about how such things work though; can I even have them to use? They are other people's stuff after all. I could sit here and just plunder you all and never have to come up with my own stuff - though where is the fun in that...! endless invention is entirely the point. It is just that some words are just right for the idea. Then again, there have been several times I have had to let some entirely perfect 'word' go because it is someone else's property, which just pushes me try again, to dig deeper, to slide sideways and get inventive. What I do not want is to be is a thief.
Back to the rewrite... (oh, and I will put up some old variants of bits of Lamplighter soon, to show what editing does for me -and you too, as the end users... did you know that you are 'end users'? Sounds a bit cold...)
Hope you all are well.
I heard once that you need to post at least once a week to be considered a real blog, so I don't know where that leaves us...
Just thought I would acknowledge that "clede" (a corruption of Mr Hranac's 'cledu' verificon word) meaning a country dance, and most likely "verger" (coined by Alyosha's daughter) meaning a builder of fortifications, might well have a place in the Half-Continent. 'Tis a bit perplexing about how such things work though; can I even have them to use? They are other people's stuff after all. I could sit here and just plunder you all and never have to come up with my own stuff - though where is the fun in that...! endless invention is entirely the point. It is just that some words are just right for the idea. Then again, there have been several times I have had to let some entirely perfect 'word' go because it is someone else's property, which just pushes me try again, to dig deeper, to slide sideways and get inventive. What I do not want is to be is a thief.
Back to the rewrite... (oh, and I will put up some old variants of bits of Lamplighter soon, to show what editing does for me -and you too, as the end users... did you know that you are 'end users'? Sounds a bit cold...)
Hope you all are well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)