Ahh noelle, it's not just fledgling authors who feel the dents of editorial comment. I am about to receive edits from my publishers and am getting myself prepared for the sting (as much as you can). "Don't they get it! How dare they say that! But I love that part!" might be among the thoughts you're having. I rant and rave and get all bothered and offended.
I find two things help with the post edit sting (actually three) a/ putting the edits down for a bit and mulling (or brooding -if you like) them over; b/ choosing the best "hills to die on" if you get my meaning - the happy medium between those things you are willing to change and those that must remain as they are, besides which, it is still your story, you do not have to make any of the changes an editor asks of you (though I would not recommend such action, a good editor will me you a better writer - I know that is true for me, God bless you Celia and Tim) c/ the healing balm of time.
Also, remind yourself that the editing stage is a team effort, AND the crucial first sharing with the beginnings of an ever widening audience. Though criticism is hard to bare, the excitement of the improved text gained through it is well worth all the struggle... well I think so, anyway.
My first drafts are L-U-M-P-Y, uneven, turgid and at times self-indulgent - folks don't have to be sad that they get edited down and words cut out; the words that are left are far better than those removed. Just for perspective I excised 25,000 words from the 1st draft of Lamplighter and oh how it improved. If anyone thought say that the journey from Winstermill to Wormstool dragged a bit in the final version of Lamplighter, just know that it went for a whole chapter longer in the 1st draft... even I thought is S-L-O-W when I came to read it over properly for myself. And now here in Book 3, Factotum, I have managed I think to prise 9,000 words (so far) out of the first 10 chapters and it is already a far better book.
So bring on the editing, I say, pain and all, a better book awaits (though ask me again in a week or so's time how I am feeling about it all...)
Alyosha, I really enjoyed your comment and though I have given cursory thought to engineers and masons and the like, I shall now think a little more particularly about such folks who tread the middle path between out and out adventure and staying safe behind walls. Concometrists come to mind a bit here, the measurers and the surveyors - but what of engineers? What should I call them...?
Showing posts with label editor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editor. Show all posts
A galley - I have the proof.
Yesterday I received from Tim Travaglini - my US publisher-man - what in the US publishing industry is called a galley (here in Oz we called them ubers, or somesuch - not sure why, probably an acronym) of Book 2, Lamplighter. This galley is what most folks would call an uncorrected proof. Indeed, that is what it says clearly on the front: "UNCORRECTED PROOF NOT FOR RESALE"... and uncorrected it is: I am still working with Mr Travaglini to make the final adjustments for the US edition.
But the best bit is that a galley is actually an early, paperback version of the book! Yipee! It looks very nifty, I near took it to bed with me as some kind of blankey... and talk about thick! Now I reckon it is not seemly to judge a book by its weight, but deep inside some part of me cannot help but go "HURRAH! Look how dense it is! " - 730 odd pages with all things included. "Did I write that? It looks just like a bought one," I marvel to myself much more than I did with Foundling, but too much self-congratulation is not a good thing so I stop.
Just to note, there is a little treat in Book 2 for many of the brave souls who have contributed to this blog with their comments. Speaking of which, thank you very much to those who dared to answer my questions last post, your entries were brilliant. In fact they have helped greatly in expanding my sense of people moving about independently in the Half-Continent, doing their thing apart from any narrative. It would be great if others would give them a go too.
And as requested today for breakfast I had Apricot Fruity Bix[TM].
But the best bit is that a galley is actually an early, paperback version of the book! Yipee! It looks very nifty, I near took it to bed with me as some kind of blankey... and talk about thick! Now I reckon it is not seemly to judge a book by its weight, but deep inside some part of me cannot help but go "HURRAH! Look how dense it is! " - 730 odd pages with all things included. "Did I write that? It looks just like a bought one," I marvel to myself much more than I did with Foundling, but too much self-congratulation is not a good thing so I stop.
Just to note, there is a little treat in Book 2 for many of the brave souls who have contributed to this blog with their comments. Speaking of which, thank you very much to those who dared to answer my questions last post, your entries were brilliant. In fact they have helped greatly in expanding my sense of people moving about independently in the Half-Continent, doing their thing apart from any narrative. It would be great if others would give them a go too.
And as requested today for breakfast I had Apricot Fruity Bix[TM].
Clearing the backlog
Merry Fathers’ Day to all you dads for yesterday.
I am going to take a moment this Monday arvo to answer some of the lingering questions. I do not think I will get all of them but I hope this handful will cut it for those interested persons.
To start, a few of Mr giantfan’s many inquiries:
“As asked a while ago I was wondering about the religions…”
Hmm, religions and spirituality in the Hc is the big, little explored frontier in my thinking. My understandings as a Christian certainly informs my ideas and I very much look to Messers Tolkien and Lewis for guidance when it comes to the esoteric in a secondary world – how one satisfies ones own beliefs without preaching. I most definitely do not intend MBT as some kind of allegory – I too dislike it when I detect it, yet the problem of the universal ideas of the religious, the philosophical, the soulful, of what people believe, of right ways and wrong ways of thinking need to be considered, tackled, delineated, even if only for my own ellucidation. Certainly there are the falsegods, those massive, mis-shapen, deep-ocean dwelling monsters who once ruled whole peoples and wrestled with men and the urchin-lords (the nimuines) until they were driven from the land into the deeps. Other monsters too have probably been lionized and adored and sacrificed to over the centuries – I can see some wicked brodchin-beast terrorizing some remote, backward community, satisfied by some sacrifice of tender young flesh (ick!) Then there is universalism – the idea of a godless, clockwork cosmos and the supremacy of human thought.
Then there is the hardest concept for me, that of the actual origin of the Alltgird, the world of which the Half-Continent is but a part: How did it get there? Why is there good and evil in the world? Where do the monsters come from? Why are there good the bad and the indifferent? And many such notions. I am still puzzling it all out – all a part of the fun of secondary world invention, and you get to watch me do it. The Hc and its surrounds are certainly not a complete idea, there is still so much work needed to make it function, so many gaps yet to fill.
“I'd also like to check on if that expanded map may come out with this book whether poster that you bye separate or with the book? Or whether the publishers are still sitting on the idea?”
I think that publishers these days struggle with the idea of posters (they just are not the fad they once were when I was a lad) and the next best solution is that website I keep promising. As with so much to do with the Hc, the gap betwixt my wishes and the practicalities of implementation rarely correlate. I truly hope a poster of the map is published one day: the full thing measures 1 metre x 800 mm and looks great framed (yes, I have one on my wall – a very useful tool for reference) – which is why it has not reproduced as well as I would have liked in the books. What was I thinking making it that big and hard to produce!?!?
“Were is southern Verid Litus could you give us a picture or something? (Note to self check to see if there are pics in book)”
The southern Verid Litus can be easily found on the existing map – it is quite simply the southern half of the Verid Litus (which means lit. “eastern coastlands”) consisting of such lands as the Verd Antique, the Laurent, Five Drains, Nought, Dice and Attica of old – to name a few. Essentially it is all the lands south of the mystic river Ix and north of the river Stivenrot. You’ll find it on Map 4 at the back of Foundling (p 429 I think) though it is – I confess – not easy to read all of the names there.
“Could we have a bit more info on The path of the Signal Stars?”
By this I am assuming you mean the Navigationals, the Signals of Paths used by canny folks to find their way about at night. You’ll have to wait for more info on this I am afraid – time has run out.
He would also like a preview of Book 2: “I think you’ve been asked this a few times and I know that publishers get first and last say on but how bout it?”
No previews of Book 2, sorry – I may get back to you on this but do not hold your breath.
Nina said... “I just finished Book One and enjoyed it immensely. I think it would make a fantastic campaign setting for a role playing game (RPG). There's got to be some money in it - you could ask your publisher. Check out Iron Kingdoms from Privateer Press. Their milieu is similar in some ways (pistoleers) to the HC but quite different in others (nothing like the fulghars). Have you considered and RPG addition to the franchise?”
An excellent question. Though I do not really rp any more, I did once, even going as far as producing 3 different rp systems and settings. Indeed, fulgars and skolds are (in an altered form) leftovers from those heady early years; the Hc has some of its roots very much in my rp-ing days. Consequently, it is in some small part my intention in with explicariums at the back of each MBT to give enough information to those determined enough to use as source material for a campaign setting in whatever rule system they like. I kinda want people to play around with the concepts whether rp-ing, writing, drawing – I have discovered one piece of fan fic for MBT, which was an odd experience. I do have, as part of the debris of those former years, a rudimentary rp system but do not plan on developing it into a fully realized game.
Indeed, I do not think my publishers are in the role-playing way of thinking anyways. Sorry about this, though I do hope the explicariums in Lamplighter (currently about as long as the explicarium in Foundling) and Book 3 will provide enough info for any campaigning needs. A little while ago I actually had a brief trade of emails with a fellow from Privateer Press Iron Kingdoms – a pleasant exchange (and apologies for I have forgotten his name… =/) – and would very much like to play a round or two of the game.
I find steam-punk very appealing and the way it is handled in Iron Kingdoms very tasty indeed, but I must confess that I do not see the Hc as a steam-punk world, and certainly there is no magic in the typical, D&D sense; I have actually been somewhat deliberate in steering away from the genre some, though overlap has been unavoidable. Yet my use of tricorns and flintlocks comes more from my enjoyment of Nelson’s navy and such inventions as gastrines and seltzer lamps and potives and fulgars are all a part of my attempts to define a distinct notion. Never-the-less comparison is a part of the process of assimilation and I share many of the same inspirational sources as the fine fellows over at Privateer Press.
Originality is a difficult and flighty bird, but I do strive to achieve as fresh a combination of the things that inspire as best I can, working and reworking and rethinking as much as I can to produce my own version of the vision.
I am currently about a third of the way through notebook 30, for those who want to know, and at the moment I am really puzzling through where to take Book 3. One of my more recent entries in nb#30 is about how coaches in the Hc do not have glass in their windows “… as this shatters too easily” – or so I wrote – “& so poses a risk to the occupants. Instead lights (by which I mean windows) of a carriage are shuttered with various slides and blinds an movable, lockable grilles…” I have also been puzzling over the whole creation story of the Hc, of the why of men v monsters and the divisions in the monsters themselves. This is a neat segue to the following picture...
This is the Spider Queen – also known as the Duchess of Spiders, the Arean Dutrix, the Spinnerling – a monster-lord known as a petchinin (or tlephathine), mighty creatures who are ambivalent about mankind, seeking neither the harm nor help but simply wanting nothing to do with everymen. Yet even in this ambivalence their wrath is terrible should they perceive a threat to their demesne – then they take on the nature of the cousin wretchin-lords, vengeful and swift in their cruelty. The Spider Queen rules from the Spinningwood in the Undermeer on the south-eastern banks of Slithermeer Swamp, keeping hidden in the forest deeps, protected by the thorny woods and frightful whispers of her unseen threat.
Today I will not tell you what I had for breakfast, just to mix things up a bit.
Here at last a solution to madbomber’s poser in – Half-Continent synonyms for real-world terms #010
editor = I came up with a neat term when addressing Celia Jellet (my most excellent editor here in Ozland, and Mister Travaglini (in the ol’ US of A) calling them verbemenders (“word alterers”) but that does not quite fit the bill I think – too obvious to my thinking. So I sat and thought and dug about and pulled out old note books and have begun to devise a whole hierarchy for the publishing “industry” in the Hc. So you have literarians, who publish serious works, and gazeteers, who provide the thinner works, such as the pamphlets Rossamünd enjoys. Now either of these might work on their own or be a part of a pressing house, which is essentially a publisher and printer in one establishment. Whether gazeteer or literarian, you will find emenders or formators (or formatrix for the girls) and these are your editors. Of these there will be a master formator, with two or three emenders and several under-formators in his/her charge; there are even freelancers known as emenders-at-large. Working the presses are the master plateman who has rule over the pressplates, under-platemen and the printing presses themselves. In more historied times the fore-runners of the literarian/emender was known as a glossapract, a publisher and editor in one, originally in Imperial employ to publish the bulls and banns of Imperial edict. Indeed, such fellows still exist as do such bulls and banns.
See what a helpful thing your word challenges are! (Well, I think they are anyways…)
And quickly, to Andre: it was my privilege to offer support - indeed, I am rather chuffed I could actually prove to helpful to another. Wonders will never cease.
I am going to take a moment this Monday arvo to answer some of the lingering questions. I do not think I will get all of them but I hope this handful will cut it for those interested persons.
To start, a few of Mr giantfan’s many inquiries:
“As asked a while ago I was wondering about the religions…”
Hmm, religions and spirituality in the Hc is the big, little explored frontier in my thinking. My understandings as a Christian certainly informs my ideas and I very much look to Messers Tolkien and Lewis for guidance when it comes to the esoteric in a secondary world – how one satisfies ones own beliefs without preaching. I most definitely do not intend MBT as some kind of allegory – I too dislike it when I detect it, yet the problem of the universal ideas of the religious, the philosophical, the soulful, of what people believe, of right ways and wrong ways of thinking need to be considered, tackled, delineated, even if only for my own ellucidation. Certainly there are the falsegods, those massive, mis-shapen, deep-ocean dwelling monsters who once ruled whole peoples and wrestled with men and the urchin-lords (the nimuines) until they were driven from the land into the deeps. Other monsters too have probably been lionized and adored and sacrificed to over the centuries – I can see some wicked brodchin-beast terrorizing some remote, backward community, satisfied by some sacrifice of tender young flesh (ick!) Then there is universalism – the idea of a godless, clockwork cosmos and the supremacy of human thought.
Then there is the hardest concept for me, that of the actual origin of the Alltgird, the world of which the Half-Continent is but a part: How did it get there? Why is there good and evil in the world? Where do the monsters come from? Why are there good the bad and the indifferent? And many such notions. I am still puzzling it all out – all a part of the fun of secondary world invention, and you get to watch me do it. The Hc and its surrounds are certainly not a complete idea, there is still so much work needed to make it function, so many gaps yet to fill.
“I'd also like to check on if that expanded map may come out with this book whether poster that you bye separate or with the book? Or whether the publishers are still sitting on the idea?”
I think that publishers these days struggle with the idea of posters (they just are not the fad they once were when I was a lad) and the next best solution is that website I keep promising. As with so much to do with the Hc, the gap betwixt my wishes and the practicalities of implementation rarely correlate. I truly hope a poster of the map is published one day: the full thing measures 1 metre x 800 mm and looks great framed (yes, I have one on my wall – a very useful tool for reference) – which is why it has not reproduced as well as I would have liked in the books. What was I thinking making it that big and hard to produce!?!?
“Were is southern Verid Litus could you give us a picture or something? (Note to self check to see if there are pics in book)”
The southern Verid Litus can be easily found on the existing map – it is quite simply the southern half of the Verid Litus (which means lit. “eastern coastlands”) consisting of such lands as the Verd Antique, the Laurent, Five Drains, Nought, Dice and Attica of old – to name a few. Essentially it is all the lands south of the mystic river Ix and north of the river Stivenrot. You’ll find it on Map 4 at the back of Foundling (p 429 I think) though it is – I confess – not easy to read all of the names there.
“Could we have a bit more info on The path of the Signal Stars?”
By this I am assuming you mean the Navigationals, the Signals of Paths used by canny folks to find their way about at night. You’ll have to wait for more info on this I am afraid – time has run out.
He would also like a preview of Book 2: “I think you’ve been asked this a few times and I know that publishers get first and last say on but how bout it?”
No previews of Book 2, sorry – I may get back to you on this but do not hold your breath.
Nina said... “I just finished Book One and enjoyed it immensely. I think it would make a fantastic campaign setting for a role playing game (RPG). There's got to be some money in it - you could ask your publisher. Check out Iron Kingdoms from Privateer Press. Their milieu is similar in some ways (pistoleers) to the HC but quite different in others (nothing like the fulghars). Have you considered and RPG addition to the franchise?”
An excellent question. Though I do not really rp any more, I did once, even going as far as producing 3 different rp systems and settings. Indeed, fulgars and skolds are (in an altered form) leftovers from those heady early years; the Hc has some of its roots very much in my rp-ing days. Consequently, it is in some small part my intention in with explicariums at the back of each MBT to give enough information to those determined enough to use as source material for a campaign setting in whatever rule system they like. I kinda want people to play around with the concepts whether rp-ing, writing, drawing – I have discovered one piece of fan fic for MBT, which was an odd experience. I do have, as part of the debris of those former years, a rudimentary rp system but do not plan on developing it into a fully realized game.
Indeed, I do not think my publishers are in the role-playing way of thinking anyways. Sorry about this, though I do hope the explicariums in Lamplighter (currently about as long as the explicarium in Foundling) and Book 3 will provide enough info for any campaigning needs. A little while ago I actually had a brief trade of emails with a fellow from Privateer Press Iron Kingdoms – a pleasant exchange (and apologies for I have forgotten his name… =/) – and would very much like to play a round or two of the game.
I find steam-punk very appealing and the way it is handled in Iron Kingdoms very tasty indeed, but I must confess that I do not see the Hc as a steam-punk world, and certainly there is no magic in the typical, D&D sense; I have actually been somewhat deliberate in steering away from the genre some, though overlap has been unavoidable. Yet my use of tricorns and flintlocks comes more from my enjoyment of Nelson’s navy and such inventions as gastrines and seltzer lamps and potives and fulgars are all a part of my attempts to define a distinct notion. Never-the-less comparison is a part of the process of assimilation and I share many of the same inspirational sources as the fine fellows over at Privateer Press.
Originality is a difficult and flighty bird, but I do strive to achieve as fresh a combination of the things that inspire as best I can, working and reworking and rethinking as much as I can to produce my own version of the vision.
I am currently about a third of the way through notebook 30, for those who want to know, and at the moment I am really puzzling through where to take Book 3. One of my more recent entries in nb#30 is about how coaches in the Hc do not have glass in their windows “… as this shatters too easily” – or so I wrote – “& so poses a risk to the occupants. Instead lights (by which I mean windows) of a carriage are shuttered with various slides and blinds an movable, lockable grilles…” I have also been puzzling over the whole creation story of the Hc, of the why of men v monsters and the divisions in the monsters themselves. This is a neat segue to the following picture...
This is the Spider Queen – also known as the Duchess of Spiders, the Arean Dutrix, the Spinnerling – a monster-lord known as a petchinin (or tlephathine), mighty creatures who are ambivalent about mankind, seeking neither the harm nor help but simply wanting nothing to do with everymen. Yet even in this ambivalence their wrath is terrible should they perceive a threat to their demesne – then they take on the nature of the cousin wretchin-lords, vengeful and swift in their cruelty. The Spider Queen rules from the Spinningwood in the Undermeer on the south-eastern banks of Slithermeer Swamp, keeping hidden in the forest deeps, protected by the thorny woods and frightful whispers of her unseen threat.Today I will not tell you what I had for breakfast, just to mix things up a bit.
Here at last a solution to madbomber’s poser in – Half-Continent synonyms for real-world terms #010
editor = I came up with a neat term when addressing Celia Jellet (my most excellent editor here in Ozland, and Mister Travaglini (in the ol’ US of A) calling them verbemenders (“word alterers”) but that does not quite fit the bill I think – too obvious to my thinking. So I sat and thought and dug about and pulled out old note books and have begun to devise a whole hierarchy for the publishing “industry” in the Hc. So you have literarians, who publish serious works, and gazeteers, who provide the thinner works, such as the pamphlets Rossamünd enjoys. Now either of these might work on their own or be a part of a pressing house, which is essentially a publisher and printer in one establishment. Whether gazeteer or literarian, you will find emenders or formators (or formatrix for the girls) and these are your editors. Of these there will be a master formator, with two or three emenders and several under-formators in his/her charge; there are even freelancers known as emenders-at-large. Working the presses are the master plateman who has rule over the pressplates, under-platemen and the printing presses themselves. In more historied times the fore-runners of the literarian/emender was known as a glossapract, a publisher and editor in one, originally in Imperial employ to publish the bulls and banns of Imperial edict. Indeed, such fellows still exist as do such bulls and banns.
See what a helpful thing your word challenges are! (Well, I think they are anyways…)
And quickly, to Andre: it was my privilege to offer support - indeed, I am rather chuffed I could actually prove to helpful to another. Wonders will never cease.
Here I am... and you thought I'd forgotten you all!
Not a chance!
Every comment goes to my email - I know when you've come a'calling... & I know how long its been since last post = far too long: you are so right Mr. Shayne de Comyn Esquire. Well, hang in there, its a long hall for anything worthy. I'd like to try and do this the first Monday of every new month. Let us see if that works, a little regularity to help folks know when its time to come and check old Monster Blog Tattoo once more.
I am currently working on a final draft for the final fine-toothed-cimb editing (what I believe is called copy editing) and loving all the questions and suggestions. Mr. Missfitt's idea of the submariner experience is a corker and I am thinking even now of a possible short story to describe just that (dedicated to him of course).
Now here is huge question for those of you have a care about such things - and one that needs pretty prompt answering. The question is:
Would you like to see what Rossamünd looks like - have me draw a view of his face or would rather that we never saw Rossamünd’s face during the series, that I left the subtlety, the mystery, the idea of his face to you the reader?
Just put your answers in the comments - no trendy poll widgets here, I'm afraid. I would be most definitely grateful to know your opinions - all of you.
Now, cause Coz asked for it, here it is – a picture of a monster…
A long time to wait?
Yes.
Will it be worth the wait?
Oh Lord, please may this be so!
Dan S. Tong bless you, sir, for such encouraging words. My word hitting the nail on the head for someone else feels so so good. I want people to respond that way – not just because I feel good if I know (oh my ego! arg!) – but because I actually want to give to the reader (those who are ready and willing) a great big other world transcendent experience. I want you to feel what I feel when I read my favourite books… That is my goal, anyways.
On of the A Nonny Mouses (cheeky scoundrels) asks: "... so could you please go into more detail about ranks and different rolls of service in HC wepenoary&c..."
Every comment goes to my email - I know when you've come a'calling... & I know how long its been since last post = far too long: you are so right Mr. Shayne de Comyn Esquire. Well, hang in there, its a long hall for anything worthy. I'd like to try and do this the first Monday of every new month. Let us see if that works, a little regularity to help folks know when its time to come and check old Monster Blog Tattoo once more.
I am currently working on a final draft for the final fine-toothed-cimb editing (what I believe is called copy editing) and loving all the questions and suggestions. Mr. Missfitt's idea of the submariner experience is a corker and I am thinking even now of a possible short story to describe just that (dedicated to him of course).
Now here is huge question for those of you have a care about such things - and one that needs pretty prompt answering. The question is:
Would you like to see what Rossamünd looks like - have me draw a view of his face or would rather that we never saw Rossamünd’s face during the series, that I left the subtlety, the mystery, the idea of his face to you the reader?
Just put your answers in the comments - no trendy poll widgets here, I'm afraid. I would be most definitely grateful to know your opinions - all of you.
Now, cause Coz asked for it, here it is – a picture of a monster…
... it is an ettin from some treeish swampland, rather smarter than your average ettin and a terror to the locals. You get a sense of this fellow's size by the skulls displayed at his hip. Does anyone want to have a go at naming him?
But the big question is, of course, Book 2 Book2 Book 2? I think I have another life somewhere, I have vague recollection of some other thing, like eating, and sleeping and going to the movies; I have this vague image of a woman with red hair… I think I married her recently – it is all so vague in shadow of BOOK 2!
Well, as far as I am aware release date is…
wait for it…
April 2008!
*wince*
A long time to wait?
Yes.
Does this bite the big one?
Yes.
Yes.
Am I so very very sorry for the wait?
Still very much so, yes!
Will it be worth the wait?
Oh Lord, please may this be so!
Dan S. Tong bless you, sir, for such encouraging words. My word hitting the nail on the head for someone else feels so so good. I want people to respond that way – not just because I feel good if I know (oh my ego! arg!) – but because I actually want to give to the reader (those who are ready and willing) a great big other world transcendent experience. I want you to feel what I feel when I read my favourite books… That is my goal, anyways.
On of the A Nonny Mouses (cheeky scoundrels) asks: "... so could you please go into more detail about ranks and different rolls of service in HC wepenoary&c..."
I’d love to tell you all about the military (in its various forms) of the Half-Continent but I want to show you in detail about it in future books (should any publisher let me) and time and space are premium here. Therefore, in very very very brief right now: ... imagine ranks and files and blocks of soldiers in bright, stiff uniforms firing across the deadly gap at each other with firelocks and black-powder cannon, wearing proofing which makes them harder to hurt. Under great flying spandarions, regimental colours and company bunting, individual bravoes strut forward, suaves who are the darlings of their companies who challenge each other to dual. Across the dead-ground insults and musket balls are swapped and nothing much decided. An order relayed by runners, shouts and flags; one force starts forward 0 r maybe both. The armies close so that they might come to handstrokes where the troubardier is lord. Include now the thaumateers – the fighting teratologists: avertines (skolds) & bombastines (scourges) hurling their potives designed to harm men in to the steadily approaching foe in his neat ranks; somewhere a torsadine (wit) steps forward and putting hand to brow flattens sixty men before him in a perfect half circle. Now it is time for blows, the foe-man – three mighty troubardiers in proof-steal lorica are swinging their poleaxes at you. In leaps a tempestine (fulgar) and with a shout swings a fuse high and calls down lightning from the sky, felling the troubardiers instantly as the heaven-bolt leaps from foe to foe. This is how it goes for many hours till the moral contest is decided and one army quits the field, leaving the other exhausted and bereft after the terror and thrill of battle are gone. They retire to their camps and leave the desperate locals to loot the corpses of friend and foe.
Koallaku asks: “I have always wondered if it is harder to write the book or edit it when the writing is done? I myself hate editing my work so when it comes to that I usually do very little >.<”
Each has its trials, but actually squeezing the work out in the first place is – for me – the harder task (by far!). Getting started on editing is the big challenge, the (big! HUGE!) fear of the work actually in the end being no good at all, of having to dump the lot and start again, the fear of boredom because I already know how the story ends (darn it!). It has the two times I have engaged in it, been a very rewarding exercise; it can take an ok text on to being one worth putting before others, and that is a very happy thing. As to being edited by my editors (shall I say edit one more time?): yes, my ego gets dented in editing, but there is nothing wrong with our egos getting buffeted into a more other-friendly shape. Big egos are the cause of much ill in this world, and humility so little seen – I am thinking of myself here. Taking out 20,000 odd words from a text (I’m answering Andre here) is actually less painful that it sounds when they are the wrong words in the first place and the losing of them makes the story so much better.
Mr. Bomber's “Pigs might fly” question might have to wait a little, suffice to say that some existing clichés are “stuck between the stone and the sty” = rock and a hard place; “you can tell a light by its colour” = proof is in the pudding; “a face that would stop a horse” = a very unattractive person; “not everyone who studies law becomes a lawyer” = things do not always turn out how they seem; “even the sebaceous hexapods of Welter know!” = something is obvious and self-evident (the sebaceous hexapods of Welter are a mysterious, half-mythic race of weird, six-limbed creatures reputed to live in the depths off the southern Verid Litus. There are “heaps” more but I shall stop here (and figure out the pigs might fly equivalent… hmm…)
For breakfast today I had Skippy Cornflakes[TM].
Koallaku asks: “I have always wondered if it is harder to write the book or edit it when the writing is done? I myself hate editing my work so when it comes to that I usually do very little >.<”
Each has its trials, but actually squeezing the work out in the first place is – for me – the harder task (by far!). Getting started on editing is the big challenge, the (big! HUGE!) fear of the work actually in the end being no good at all, of having to dump the lot and start again, the fear of boredom because I already know how the story ends (darn it!). It has the two times I have engaged in it, been a very rewarding exercise; it can take an ok text on to being one worth putting before others, and that is a very happy thing. As to being edited by my editors (shall I say edit one more time?): yes, my ego gets dented in editing, but there is nothing wrong with our egos getting buffeted into a more other-friendly shape. Big egos are the cause of much ill in this world, and humility so little seen – I am thinking of myself here. Taking out 20,000 odd words from a text (I’m answering Andre here) is actually less painful that it sounds when they are the wrong words in the first place and the losing of them makes the story so much better.
Mr. Bomber's “Pigs might fly” question might have to wait a little, suffice to say that some existing clichés are “stuck between the stone and the sty” = rock and a hard place; “you can tell a light by its colour” = proof is in the pudding; “a face that would stop a horse” = a very unattractive person; “not everyone who studies law becomes a lawyer” = things do not always turn out how they seem; “even the sebaceous hexapods of Welter know!” = something is obvious and self-evident (the sebaceous hexapods of Welter are a mysterious, half-mythic race of weird, six-limbed creatures reputed to live in the depths off the southern Verid Litus. There are “heaps” more but I shall stop here (and figure out the pigs might fly equivalent… hmm…)
For breakfast today I had Skippy Cornflakes[TM].
And now: Half-Continent synonyms for real-world terms #009
horticulturalist = well most normally they are called gardeners unsurprisingly, or bowerists; also more technically you might find a flosfructors (technical), pomarians (fashionable), gartenbaurers (Gott), Imperial Hortomaths (the personal gardeners and gardening habilists of the Emperor).
Merry New Thing!
Well soooooo long has past and not a peep from me and all I can say to that is Book 2 is done!!! It is in the hands of editors! ... and it is definitely much longer than Foundling – currently 33 chapters (though Celia, my editor here in OZ, may have something to say about that … we shall see.)
So I am back to blogging and thank you so much to all the questions and encouragements. I shall endeavour to answer all queries put to me in the very near future.
So I wish a Merry Late-Christmas & HAPPY NEW THINGY! to you all and I look forward to more frequent posting from me - so you can too.
Oh, and before I forget, this morning for breakfast I had Nutri-Grain [TM]
Watch this space for more Half-Continent words for every-day items, returning very soon...
So I am back to blogging and thank you so much to all the questions and encouragements. I shall endeavour to answer all queries put to me in the very near future.
So I wish a Merry Late-Christmas & HAPPY NEW THINGY! to you all and I look forward to more frequent posting from me - so you can too.
Oh, and before I forget, this morning for breakfast I had Nutri-Grain [TM]
Watch this space for more Half-Continent words for every-day items, returning very soon...
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