Reorganization began last year with my office.\u00a0 This year the amazing Kate (who has helped me do what I couldn’t on my own, and also untangled tech problems that I couldn’t do that either) accomplished three times as much in several months, while I worked on my writing (mostly) and she did the heavy lifting (actual lifting at times) that transformed bedroom, what *will* be the craft room when I finish the work, and crash attacks on several other problems.\u00a0 We also hosted an introductory saber workshop taught by the incomparable Russ Mitchell\u00a0 of\u00a0 Winged Sabre Historical Fencing from Dallas, whom I’d visited earlier, for some coaching in my attempt to learn sabre.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, no word from Editor about Horngard, and after a discussion with Agent and a clearer eye, I went in to that battleground again, this time with aid from the writing group I’m in.<\/p>\n
I have a new computer (well, she’s a year old now),\u00a0 a REAL high-speed internet connection, a new printer.\u00a0\u00a0 And Kate’s mother Karen (who is NOT “a Karen” so no jokes about her name) is working on a “bible” for Paksworld, which has grown too big to handle with a few namelist files, especially since the demise of the previous computer (Bunter)\u00a0 zapped them.\u00a0 Kate also found me a fantastic data recovery firm, which recovered a lot of stuff that was on Bunter.\u00a0 Yay on that.<\/p>\n
But back to the writing.\u00a0 Short fiction done while Horngard was being revised (MANY times) in the past year turned out to be useful to keep the first-drafting instincts continuing to recover.<\/p>\n
So Horngard now has a new beginning that is less…verbose.\u00a0 Re-imagined in terms of the characters’ complexity and also specific developmental, um, constraints.\u00a0\u00a0 Camwyn is 21 now,\u00a0 and Aris is 18.\u00a0 Camwyn, readers o the Paladin’s Legacy books will remember, was badly injured by an iynisin attack, saved by Dragon, who took him away to heal him dragon-fashion and later reported that he had survived but lost all his previous memories.\u00a0 Now it’s\u00a0 5-6 years later.\u00a0 Camwyn indeed remembers nothing of his life before waking in Dragon’s cave.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s spent the intervening years being retaught what can be retaught, by Dragon and the tutors Dragon hires, prepating Cam to become king somewhere in the Westmounts.\u00a0 Aris, 3 years younger, shocked and grieving, wanted Camwyn back…the Camwyn he remembered. That didn’t happen.\u00a0 Losing Camwyn apparently changed his personality from the active, mischievous boy who was up for any of Camwyn’s\u00a0 sometimes hair-raising ideas…and became the perfect page, then the perfect squire.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s been vigorously discouraged (by his father, by his older brothers) from “daydreaming” about finding Camwyn himself and renewing their friendship.\u00a0\u00a0 His father, at least, thinks Aris has given up that idea entirely.\u00a0 Meanwhile, like many a teenage boy, he’s counting the days until he’s free to act on his own.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s quite a bit about horses in this monster–it’s not about horses, exactly, but the Marrakai family horses are widely known, and three Marrakai…no, counting Julyan, the youngest, *four* Marrakai, all of them horse-connected, are active in the plot.\u00a0\u00a0 Juris, the eldest and kirgan, Gwennothlin, who was one of Dorrin’s squires and then went into the Bells and now is in the Royal Guard of Tsaia, Aris…co-MC with Camwyn…and Julyan.<\/p>\n
If interested in snippets, there are several posted over on the Paksworld blog, one each for Camwyn, Aris, Aesil M’Dierra, and Gurtnor Sartanits…who’s Gurtnor?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Owner-commander of Blue Company out of Valdaire.\u00a0 The kind of man who scrapes his spurs on a polished floor, carries not just a longsword, a dagger in each boot, and a street-fighting short-sword on his other hip and wants all these to show everyone how tough he is…and who condescends to Aesil M’dierra, sneering about Duke Arcolin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reorganization began last year with my office.\u00a0 This year the amazing Kate (who has helped me do what I couldn’t on my own, and also untangled tech problems that I couldn’t do that either) accomplished three times as much in several months, while I worked on my writing (mostly) and she did the heavy lifting 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":[59,54,29,10],"tags":[49,17,55,7],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beynd-writing","category-paksworld","category-revision","category-the-writing-life","tag-horses","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-paksworld-universe","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574"}],"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=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}