Chapter 9: Weighing Souls
Finally got over the hump and whizzed through the last part with few changes. See what you think. Hope it got shorter. Didn't check the word count.
posted by Lynda at 21:49   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Lynda, that is the sound of me catching up to you. I finally finished the review and uploaded the five Far Arena files I have been tinkering with for at least a month. Now, hi ho hi ho off I go to review some CMAJ proofs.
posted by Anonymous at 21:22   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

I have up the first installment of stuff from the book launch in P.G. last weekend. Paul Strickland also took pictures and I'll get his later this week. Also going to do up some thank you letters for readers which should be pretty and have some neat possibilities to report on ... but ran out hours again today.

Very cool about the comments! Wow.

posted by Lynda at 23:58   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
I've been meaning to blog for some time about an article in the Summer 2001 UK Society of Authors magazine ("The Author"), by Canadian-born writer Charlotte Vale Allen, describing how she got into self-publishing, then into print-on-demand and then into on-line bookselling. She's had a long career, was writing about womens issues, including psychosexuality, in the 1970s, which led to her books being slapped with torrid romance covers. Dissatisfied in the end with the way she and her books were being treated and marketed, and after about 20 years experience, she set up her own publishing company, did two books, one by herself and one fiction, lost a lot of money due to distributor problems, but learned about print on demand via her relationship with the distributor (one good thing). So she came up with the idea of using print on demand (Lightning Print) to reissue her entire backlist, and the further idea of reissuing those books that had been issued as paperback originals as library editions, did a frighteningly/encouragingly large deal with a library wholesaler, and did a huge binge scanning books, correcting the OCR glitches, and getting them printed. Then she found out about setting up an on-line store, and rounded up the 3 components needs, a merchant bank, a shopping-cart providers, and a service to verify and authorize transactions. She already had a website. So she signs and ships books out herself when orders come in, and when she runs low, orders another small print run from Lightning. After all that, she decided she didn't want to self-publish anymore (except for the re-issues) - "let someone else do the hard work". Her article's conclusion: "The cover art on my new novel looks like dead leaves on crumpled cellophane and has nothing whatever to do with the contents of the book. Some things just never change."
posted by Anonymous at 10:45   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Am I confused? I don't believe the clock has changed yet. But although
the setting of where we are - or the closest approximation to where we
are - is correct, the time stamp on posts is currently -1 h of actual
PST.

posted by Anonymous at 08:17   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
This time of the e-mailing to the blog: that it goes through, and that
it picks up the subject line as a title. It is going out now (8:20 am);
it may be some time.

posted by Anonymous at 08:17   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Some more tinkering with the template, testing the title functionality.

And again, trying to get bold on titles ...
posted by Anonymous at 08:06   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Comments up
Flush with success in installing Greymatter over on my evolving me-dot-com site, I have now added comments to the ORU Blog. I'm about to test them, on this post.
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The Silence
No Alison. No Lynda. What a September! One whole week of silence on the blog.

Newspaper and radio (CBC) coverage of Throne Price book launch this week coincided with coverage of my nomination in three categories for "Today's Woman" awards. Going to have to start measuring my head for signs of swelling in the mornings. But more sleep would be nice! And more time to write. That's not the glare of fame keeping me from both, of course, folks. Just a convergence of life and work crises, deadlines and meetings in Vancouver. I have to get up before 5 a.m. tomorrow. And planning for an AGM tonight. Like Arthur Dent I think "I really must do something about my life style." Fear the silence from Alison implies she has been hit by the same sort of crunch at work.

Haven't heard from you much on e-mail, either, since we last talked on the phone.

Prince George to Victoria, come in Victoria... are you keeping your nose above the work load?
posted by Lynda at 07:55   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Big THANK YOU to Yukari
... for agreeing to assist with the book launch by doing some of the promotion and contacting people.
posted by Lynda at 10:50   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
This and that
... at least the cover of Throne Price is in the "bright shiny new" category. :-)

Uploaded my pass of chapter 8 this morning. Tipped a couple of the descriptions of Erien's condition towards rel-osh vivid competence vs. human giddy weakness. Hope that jives with expectations. I think that scene was one we'd done only in patch work before. Few places where the action needed to be better integrated because of that unavoidable issue when working back and forth in chunks. Take a look?

Heard something on the radio yesterday that jog loose a thought or two about new publishing, also. That plus a visit from Peter Thompson, at work. Peter had thoughts to share about changes in the field towards digital means of keeping books in print with a "fewer sales per period but available over longer periods" model, and the small transactions nature of good online profit plans for digitial publishing. On the radio I heard a feature about the one big African film festival. Just at the end, after airing the predictable string of frustrations about doing Hollywood style production in a country without the raw materials, either in trained personnel or sheer equipment, they tacked on a bit about low budget, made in Africa, video productions which were starting to take hold. The producers are able to make enough via their own homegrown net of distribution-to-VCR-tape avenues, to be able to make the next video. Nobody gets rich, but stuff gets done and people get to see it. According to the show, which aired on CBC, the one really big slick African movie (which was not funded by African sources but had African actors, settings and an African political / history theme) has not played much in Africa because the theatres can't afford to buy it!

PS Read a few articles on the the SfN URL you posted earlier. Nice format. Very readable. Good length.
posted by Lynda at 10:49   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Overheard in Bolens bookstore
"It's all fantasy. I can't find anything historical."
And I looked at it, and indeed it is all fantasy, including reissues of Le Guin, McKinley, Diane Duane, even Robert C. O'Brien - a whole mob of old friends in bright shiny new covers that have crowded out the infestation of teeny-romances and Worthy Social Problem Novels that was making the children's section such an unappealing place.
I smirked.
Though I must admit I am a little envious of the cover art today. Either the new technology makes it easier, or the stiffer market requires it, but there seems to be much more beautiful cover art around. The American covers for my first two solos are even more awful in retrospect, though the British ones were very handsome. My favourite is still the original cover for Blueheart. It was elegant in its simplicity.
I know what I'd like on the cover of Opal, if it ever comes to press: Noon and the imajn, in white, black, blue and orange/vermilion.
posted by Anonymous at 20:43   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Far Arena: missed opportunities
Does Ann know who Dorn is? The idea of using Erien as a hostage comes to mind easily enough, but using Dorn isn't mentioned. Either she shouldn't know who Dorn is - since Erien judiciously does not give her a full name - or her scruples about using him while he's down should be made more evident.

(Added later) Rereading 8, maybe she shouldn't know until she's confronted by Horth and Bryllit and Erien tells him - they're Dorn's parents.
posted by Anonymous at 20:31   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Ameron's coterie
I suspect Iarous would have been more poised and less vulnerable in the scene with Sen; she's likely to have said herself what Amel said, about "you'd be surprised what 'relpul know". She does enjoy keeping him off balance.

I have been reading too much Sherlock Holmes. Here's the very beginning of something:


"We need to keep a record," says he.
"Yes, My Prince," says I.
"Make it truthful," says he.
Which leaves me, Branstatt Monitum, his loyal errant and appointed chronicler, pouring myself another glass of Turquoise and wondering how by all my mismated ancestors to go about 'being truthful' about this mess of lies, evasions, misdirections and manipulations - and that, by the way, just describes our side.

I now know who Ameron's fourth 'relpul is. He's an undercover operative, seconded to Ditatt to keep him away from trouble, trouble away from him, and Ameron appraised of what 'Tatt is stirring up.
posted by Anonymous at 20:26   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Ideas for the CD
Thus far, I've collected the following ideas for what to put on the CD Rob and ... ack, I left my notes at work. I think it's Vince... will be doing for us in time for World Con. We were told not to worry about what was doable, in the brain storming stage. That'll come later. :-)

• Alison: draggable rel-ship used to navigate reaches with jump transitions


• Alison: icon or bookshelf holding planned works, with current novel zooming into its place in the sequence


• Mica Currie: audio clips of Gelack pronounciation


• Mica Currie: 3D virtual tour of Under Gelion (#1 choice)


• Mica Currie: cockpit simulation


• Lynda: Reetion STI illustration -- maybe interactive with "click for event or change of setting"


• Lynda: Dramatized reality flying (either set pieces of typical ship-to-ship interference or "fly your own")


• Lynda: Extracts from works published or in progress; full text of Mekan'stan novella and maybe Kath novella


• Jennifer: Unborn and the song for Cher'stan that she's working on

At the meeting last week at Denis and Muntener we also knocked around ideas to do with house braid, merchandising materials like jewelry or coffee mugs, an octagon as part of a "whole page" menu, screen savers and wallpaper (two wallpaper images already on "home grown" CD.

An important feature would be a slide show featuring people who have "crossed pathes" with the ORU at cons, readings, etc.

Tentative Transmission Date for Frozen Ink Piece
Monday 7:20 Sept 9th
posted by Lynda at 07:44   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Interviews with Alison
Extracts from our recorded phone conversation in quest of a bit of atmosphere for the CBC interview, are now up at Interviews with Alison on the
ORU web site. Big files. A bit hissy. Taped off the phone, live.
posted by Lynda at 09:27   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Far Arena
Also have two more chapters of current FA "pass" done and uploaded as per our protocol.
posted by Lynda at 00:21   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Oops.
Got some of the background wrong in that last, of course. Time slip. Have to re-write for the real thing, toning down the Goldens stuff. Should have fun marking the changes in Amel's life, as he becomes respectable, through his entourage and clothes.
posted by Lynda at 00:19   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Bit of Avim's Oath, Draft
Because, no doubt, it is the last thing I ought to be doing... this popped out.

Amel swung open the doors of his own entrance hall, startling two of Alivda's Golden Guardians enough they cleared their swords. Both immediately looked abashed. But they might have been assassins, not honor guards, and Amel wouldn't have batted an eyelash.
"Sen!" he exclaimed joyfully, opening his arms.
The woman Iarous had been chatting with got to her feet and stared.
"Gods," remarked Sen D'Lekker.
Amel was beaming. That was unfair. He was also attractively dressed in a stylish compromise between his preference for soft, well cut casual wear and his dresser's notion of appropriate dress for a Divine Presence representing his great grandfather, the Golden Emperor, at court. The net effect was mostly white, shot with silvery threats of gold and silver which darted in directions that had been the topic of a day's deliberations in the back rooms of Blue Hearth where his Demoran staff had set up shop.
"Look at you!" Amel laughed, realizing his guest was dazzled. "After six years on Demora, you would think you'd be immune to pomp!"
The woman nodded. She was in her early fifties, but a nobleborn not yet showing her age, with a pleasant rather than a striking face, and a tidy figure equally at home in the warm, sturdy skirts favored by some Dem'Vrellish women, or a more unisex look. She was wearing pants now. A uniform, in fact, decorated in the braid of House Lekker of Far Home in the Knotted Strings.
"I am immune," she said. "To fraud. You're the real thing."
Amel laughed. "Don't you start! I'm not as good and selfless as they say, you know. My head can swell to indecent proportions."
Sen was smiling with great satisfaction. "You are the real thing. And you always were. A Soul of Light. A beacon to aspire to. Goodness personified, to chasten us."
Amel's wet-ink eyebrows both lifted, lips parted. "Sen?" He asked, sounding a little spooked.
"It doesn't mean I won't give you a hug," she relented, and laughed. "Or try catching a look at you naked."
They hugged. Iarous cocked Amel an inquiring glance as he drew back.
"Oh, Sen," Amel introduced them, "this is Iarous. She's my gorarelpul."
"Isn't she bonded to Ameron?" Sen asked, clearly finding such a social introduction a bit awkward.
"Yes, she is," Amel admitted, still smiling at both of them, a hand on either woman's arm. He caught himself doing it and let Iarous go.
"And did you succeed?" Iarous asked Sen D'Lekker.
"What? At seeing him naked?" Sen picked up, immediately, and struck an aloof pose, more for the benefit of the guards who were pretending not to listen than Iarous. "You needn't worry about that," she told the gorarelpul, and leaned into a stage whisper. "It wasn't politically motivated. Not something gorarelpul know much about, I know. But think about it. It'll come."
Sen had not meant to be cruel. She did not expect the tall, willow thin gorarelpul to have feelings on the subject one way or another. Iarous held Sen's eyes long enough to weigh and measure her remarks. Then she looked down in a way Amel did not like. Not hurt. Just numb.
Goaded by a wordless intuition, Amel said, "You'd be surprised what Iarous knows about." He caught Sen by the hand. "Come on. It's been an age since I've seen you, and you're here about D'Lekker and his boys, of course. Let's go somewhere that we can talk."

posted by Lynda at 00:10   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments