Agent Response

Great relief of writer to find that yes, the whole package is back…my agent called Friday and we had a good long talk.  The book IS a book.  It is a reasonably good book.  It could use some work, but he enjoyed it, stayed up late to read it.  Also, all the things he talked about that needed some work made sense and I could see how to fix those things (in other words, the critical faculty has come back along with the creative stuff.  YAY!!)

I started in that night (not very well…hadn’t thought it through enough) and Saturday morning got going on it and have made considerable progress.   There’ve been some delays–interruptions of this and that–and of course the second book has been sidelined until this one’s submission ready.   Interruptions are common and inevitable and often things I WANT to be interrupted by.  (Friend’s grandchild getting her first bareback ride ever on my spotted horse?  Of course! )

The series/group title is, at least at this point, Horngard (for the place.)

A snippet from Chapter 8:  In Camwyn’s POV

The rumbling was louder, louder, then a roar approaching faster; the road beneath him vibrated.  The roar’s quality changed; he could hear individual blows within it now, a giant’s hammer pounding in no even rhythm within the roar, random thuds of and bangs, and pebbles flew in a curtain past him, past the outer edge of the road.

A snippet from Chapter 16: In Aris’s POV

Aris walked back to Dragon’s head, hearing his horse munching away on hay as if a dragon in the courtyard were less his concern than a cow in the kitchen garden.

13 thoughts on “Agent Response

  1. Yay for good interruptions and for continued improvement. Of course a dragon that isn’t threatening a horse isn’t important, FOOD is.

    I’m very happy that your agent got sucked in and am wondering what is coming down the road….

  2. Lots of “Yay!”s.

    Yay for the agent enjoyig the book enough to want to stay up to read the book.
    Yay for the agent having constructive criticism to make the book better.
    YAY!! for you being able to see the ways to fix those problems!
    Yay for lovely interruptions.

    May the corrections continue apace so you can get back to Horngard I (greedy fan wants more of your books).J

  3. I find myself thinking, were it not for the richness of your characterization, many books back, a return and continuation would have been much less likely.

  4. Thank you all for your comments, I’m still working on the most complicated of the changes, braiding in three unequal and already complex timelines so it’s clearer what R and Z were doing while M was dealing with that other stuff.

    Without adding excessive wordage, boring infodump, and details that lead nowhere. “Meanwhile, back on the South road, Joe has just realized that there’s trouble ahead, and meanwhile back on the North road there’s a fallen tree in the road, and meanwhile back at the ranch armed strangers are prowling around in the yard…” just isn’t the way I want it to read. Especially since the South Road group will be on that road for mmph days, the North Road group for zrch days and the Ranch group will spend nnjss days of trying to hold off the increasing number of armed strangers and not knowing that help is on the way but…in a 13th c. kind of way, *slowly* while hurrying.

    My nearby usually-helpful-and-quick persons for fact-checking this kind of stuff are not available at present for reasonable reasons, so I’m trying to do it myself, without having a printout because of other Lifestuff here, and doing it in the machine is a hellhole I hope to avoid in future. By getting a new printer, yes. When certain conditions have been fulfilled. That I haven’t had time or opportunity to do yet.

    Anyway, I’m tempted to throw it back to Agent at this point and see if he can point me in the right direction. It’s better. It’s quite a bit better. But I have the feeling–and can neither confirm or deny because my brain’s fried–that somewhere in the mmph days of “book time” in those chapters, I have someone claiming to know something they can’t yet, or someone having arrived at a location they won’t achieve for another day or three.

    Book II, meanwhile, prods me multiple times a day reminding me how many days I haven’t worked on it and that it’s starving and I’m guilty of authorial neglect and will be reported. And two characters I’d really like to see again and haven’t for years are showing me little mental videos of them…them together (what??) in the snow (!!) at [place] about to do great things but I can’t find out until this one is done & dusted or at least off to find a publisher.

    I’m also being reminded by the Horse Auditor that I’ve left pregnant mares unaccounted for too long and there will be FOALS (fictional foals, I hasten to add, born of fictional mares in Paksworld) and by waiting I’ve been penalized because one of those mares will have a foal that violates all known equine color genetics rules. That note is signed by Horse Auditor with a stamp of a horseshoe splattering wax all over the page. I quickly mentioned recessive genes and partial whatsit (can’t think of the word) and Horse Auditor’s secretary, on the phone, did a perfect horse laugh. Yes, I already know what color that foal will be but I’m not saying. It’s all my fault.

    Back to work.

  5. Can’t wait until these books come out.

    However I am looking for some help. I am trying to recall the title of the short story about the nephew of Sofi Gnarrion[?] and the anthology it was in. This came out within the past six years or so but I have not been able to find any mention of it. I enjoyed reading it while browsing at my local Barnes and Noble and would like to find it again. Any assistance would be appreciated.

  6. First Blood in SHATTERED SHIELDS edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Luden the young protagonist is a great-nephew of the Duke of Fall, sent to war as a squire accompanying one of Sofi’s captains.

    1. I will mention that Luden’s deeds continue to resonate in Paksworld, in NewBook. It would be a major spoiler to share how, so I won’t. A character will explain it when the time comes.

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