After considerable work on the Horngard I,\u00a0 so it now has a new beginning, new ending, and a lot of shuffling, trimming, correction of this that and the other in the middle, it’s off to Agent.\u00a0 Sorry about the long lapse in posting here, but later August and all of September were a wild scramble because of Other Things.<\/p>\n
The Discord writing group I’m now on\u00a0 has been VERY helpful, especially because most of the others there are not familiar with my work at all, and thus critique from the POV I needed most: that of potential readers unfamiliar with the Paksworld story universe.\u00a0\u00a0 (One helpful comment:\u00a0 “Is that name a character or a city or something?”\u00a0 A reminder that readers need to be quickly oriented to person and place–and time if that’s at all relevant.\u00a0\u00a0 That newcomers to the works should not have to climb a cliff, but have an easy on-ramp to the story so they can merge with less effort.)\u00a0\u00a0 And trying to read a chunk of their various works and get up to speed for critiquing, gave me an even more immediate experience of what the newcomer needs.\u00a0\u00a0 (I wasn’t sure which of a family was the grandfather, the father, or the teenage son…)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also very helpful, in the last few days of revision, was an online site (there are a bazillion!) where a much younger writer was handing out her tips…and one of them that was exactly what I needed to see that night.\u00a0\u00a0 Two thousand words fell off the sledge the next day (and needed to.)<\/p>\n
So Horngard’s off to the races, at least as far as Agent, a much leaner, more active book with a good feel of flow in it, and a totally lame ending gone.\u00a0\u00a0 You definitely deserve snippets.\u00a0 These are, however, the same snippets the Paksworld blog got maybe a half hour ago, so this is basically a cross-post of that one.<\/p>\n
\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n
Aesil M\u2019dierra, having lunch in The Golden Fish<\/em> in Valdaire, remembering a childhood incident:<\/p>\n Rainclouds low over the citadel, hiding all but the bases of the two peaks that gave the place its name.\u00a0 Cold rain, slippery rock, then the warmth of the great entrance chamber, a polished bronze dragon statue, gold leaf that had once covered it almost worn away.\u00a0 A man in yellow robes lifting the statue\u2019s tail, the mouth opening, emitting first a puff of smoke and then warm red tongue sliding out for her to touch with her own\u2026.<\/p>\n She pushed memory aside with an effort.<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n Juris Marrakai en route to Marrakai\u2019s country estate, escorted by Royal Guard<\/p>\n \u201cBut\u2013where do you turn for the house?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll go; I can show them.\u00a0 You go straight ahead.\u00a0 Give me some men!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019re supposed to protect you<\/u>!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy sisters<\/u>!\u201d\u00a0 With that, Juris spurred back down the column for the crossroad, and Fandosson yelled for half the troop to follow Juris, then spurred ahead.<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n Meddthal Andressat, in Cha (south of Pliuni)\u00a0 representing Count Andressat.\u00a0 Andressat has claimed the South Marches since Siniava\u2019s War.<\/p>\n The courier\u2019s head fell forward like a puppet with cut strings.\u00a0 Dead.\u00a0 Meddthal felt he\u2019d been dipped in ice water.\u00a0 He was dragonkin, this was Dragon\u2019s business, but Dragon\u2013he touched his amulet and it lay cold on his chest.\u00a0 He did not know where Dragon was.<\/p>\n \u201cI will send word,\u201d he said to his captain.\u00a0 \u201cBurn his clothes, just in case.\u00a0 And bury him deep.\u201d<\/p>\n He sent a courier north, that very hour, hoping it was not too late.<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After considerable work on the Horngard I,\u00a0 so it now has a new beginning, new ending, and a lot of shuffling, trimming, correction of this that and the other in the middle, it’s off to Agent.\u00a0 Sorry about the long lapse in posting here, but later August and all of September were a wild scramble Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,54,28,10],"tags":[55,31,7],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-with-paksworld-blog","category-paksworld","category-snippet","category-the-writing-life","tag-paksworld-universe","tag-snippet","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}