Friday, March 28, 2003
Draft copy version 2
 
Here is another attempt at Amel
Amel's neck is shorter and he has some clothes on. :)
Please keep in mind that this is just a little experiment and everything (colors, patterns, etc) can be changed in any way you would like.
I tried to make his eyes as grey as possible, but if they still look blue....I will try again.



Lynda: featured author
 
Either Lynda or I have not been reading our email. Because I didn't know that Lynda is currently featured author at Lunacat.net. So either I didn't read the email in which she told me, or she didn't read the email in which they told her! :-)


Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Draft copy
 
Hello Lynda,
I have been working on Amel part of the cover and so far this is what I have.
Please let me know what you think.
Amel (just a head shot at this time)


Thursday, March 20, 2003
Stray scenes
 
Inspired by last night's phone call - and a particularly shambolic day at work - I wrote two scenes or part scenes from Avim Oath. Lynda, I posted them to your okalrel.org address. Now my eyes are squinty and puffy and I'm going to lay me down to sleep - and TGIF tomorrow. One of the downsides of liking one's work is the frustration at impediments to doing it well.


Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Windstorm Creative becomes ORU's 2nd Publisher
 
I am thrilled to announce that Windstorm Creative has signed up the Okal Rel Universe, that publishers can be great people, and that we now have two of them! Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy will bring out the ten novels in the mainline series, as has been the plan with Edge since Alison and I signed contracts for Throne Price. [We have two of these in process with Edge, now: Second Contact in the copy editing stage, and Far Arena one step from that.] Windstorm Creative will bring out first Meksan'stan and Kath (novellas), and then a series of novellas and other works in the ORU covering times and events outside the mainline chronology in the Edge novels. Alison and I met Windstorm's Jennifer DiMarco at this year's Rustycon, where I gave her a copy of Brian's (Edge) beautiful edition of Throne Price with the metallic process cover, and the Plett/Jordan edition of Mekan'stan, produced in a limited edition for Rustycon as a promotional tool for the ORU. Jennifer loved them both. She was generous enough to tell us she had stayed up all night reading Throne Price, in fact! And she wanted to publish ORU material. We had a wonderful, and difficult, couple of days in which I--at least--had nightmares about winding up with zero publishers instead of two. Writerly wisdom in the pub is to take nothing on trust and soldier through the creative process with a grim attitude and lawyers, if possible. I do not dispute this may be true in some cases, and cringe at the horror stories, but both Windstorm and Edge are, well, princes. :-) Windstorm did not refuse to work with the ORU because we meant to honor our existing understanding with Edge about the ten mainline novels, and Edge did not balk over Windstorm becoming a partner in the ORU "enterprise". Alison, who writes the lion's share of the novels with me, stuck by me as a friend as well as a co-author, and expressed herself happy to see me publish my solo novellas and other works with Windstorm. (Expecting, hoping, lobbying? that she will do some novellas with me, there, also. Like the D'iff/Amel series of stores while Alivda is growing up, and story of how Charous became Ameron's gorarelpul. She is keen in principle. We just have to, jointly, find the time.) Jennifer DiMarco, on behalf of Windstorm, was very understanding. She sent an e-mail saying she didn't want to come across like "a pushy American". :-) Brian Hades, of Edge, called me up on the phone to talk about it. I confess I almost cried when he said he wanted us to succeed and wouldn't "get in the way" of that. Without Brian, the ORU would still be something Alison and I did for ourselves (and because our characters have to live somewhere). I am also proud, as a Canadian, of the books that Edge produces: Science Fiction that is a little more challenging in its reading level and ideas than the average fare in the genre, beautifully produced, and drawing on international as well as domestic talent. Brian's support of the ORU, and faith in it, has kept me going on days when I've wondered whether treatment for an irrational obession might not have been a more reasonable strategy. And since I am in a warm, fuzzy mood, I would also like to embrace, in this message: Edge's Richard Janzen, our swift and caring editor; Kim, the sales and promotion person at Edge; Kathy Plett and Jordan Bacon, who produced the Rustycon edition of Mekan'stan; Ali and Robert Grieve of the westcoast con circuit; Yukari (who will be doing cover art for some of the Windstorm productions); and every single person who bought Throne Price... which reminds me, reviews on http://www.amazon.ca would be nice. :-)


Monday, March 17, 2003
Gloom and doom
 
Had a gloomy day driving to work today, with war threatening to stir up more war and scares about atypical pneumonia. Gods! Why can't we concentrate on fixing our problems as a species instead of creating more? But I guess all one can do is go on, and make whatever difference it is given us to be able to. Sometimes it is scary being alive, and hard to be proud to be human.


Saturday, March 15, 2003
Throne Price on Amazon
 



Monday, March 10, 2003
TP getting out and about
 
Throne Price (complete with cover), is now up on Amazon.com (which I could access this afternoon, but not now, alas). No longer does Nigel Tranter reign supreme. (Previously a search for "Throne Price" brought up Tranter's Robert the Bruce trilogy. Now, I'm as much a Bruce fan as any Scot, but there are limits). In a few days, hopefully, people will be able to post reviews. (Hint, hint). Though I am scratching my head over the fact that the section normally occupied by "people who bought this book also bought ... " is presently occupied by "people who bought clothing also bought ..." Is this some oblique comment on the cover?

In addition, the March Locus listed it as a new arrival, and the March SFSite also listed it as a new arrival.


And Ranar thinks he has problems
 

I'm reading my way through the "Foreigner" sequence of books by CJ Cherryh. This is the main character, who functions as an intermediary between a human settlement on an alien planet and the aliens whose planet it is, thinking about the challenges of translation:

The paidhi had to have mathematical ability: it went with the job, and one learned it right along with a language that continually made changes in words according to number and relationship - sometimes you needed algebra just to figure the grammatically correct form of a set-adjective, when the wrong form could be infelicitous and offend the person you were trying to win. You formed sets on the fly in your conversation just to avoid divisible plural forms, like the dual or quad not offset by the triad or monad, and in learning rapid conversation, even with the shortcut concepts the language held, your head hurt - until you got to a degree of familiarity where you could chain-calculate while holding a conversation, and no restuarant ever got away with padding your bill. - CJ Cherryh, Invader

They're fun books, with an extremely introverted presentation: they are entirely from the point of view of the lone human among aliens, who is obliged constantly to double-check and second-guess himself because not only is assassination common custom and betrayal an art-form, but the powerful bonds between atevi do not arise from liking or love, or anything humans have gut feeling for. Bren is forced into a constant intellectual analysis of everything internal and external, in the manner described by high-functioning autistics, who have to do consciously what the rest of us supposedly do by instinct (um. Maybe that's why Bren's ruminations are so entertaining: there but for the grace etc go I, thinks I, in certain highly social situations. Minus assassins. And alkaloid-laden teas). The alkaloid laden teas in question are ones he shares - in the first instance, nearly fatally - with one of the rare marvellous old ladies of SF, his main atevi ally's grandmother and political rival, a hard-riding, wicked, shrewd old traditionalist who delights in making mischief. She is at various points in the books adversary, ally, and unknown quantity - usually the latter. He is at once very fond of her, and aware that she may well be the death of him, if he crosses her - or simply from a heart attack when she drops into a fraught situation and expects to carry all with sheer force of personality. There was an interesting review of one of the later books on SFSite where the reviewer remarks upon the introverted nature of the book and says that it makes sense if you interpret it (and the whole series) as an example of an atevi classical drama, a manchini play, in which the protagonists' manchini (which translates as 'loyalty' in the same approximate way that okal rel translates as honour) is examined. Neat approach to taking the artist's work entirely on its own terms.



Sunday, March 02, 2003
Sample House Braid
 
Jennifer Hyndman is a friend who does exquisite lacework. She agreed to take a crack at doing a bit of Gelack house braid. I have envisioned house braid as something derived from Demish story braid that comes to represent a given family. The more Demish the heritage, the more variations on a theme, alternatives and straight story braid would be worn. The less Demish the house, the more sketchy, minimal or theme-restricted the motifs. All house braid, however, is worked in patterns that vary as you go along, rather than repeating in the way Earthy needlework usually does. This made doing the sample a challenge! Jennifer had to make up a unique creation. She has promised to give me a fuller explanation, describing what she based the piece on and how it deviated from any existing pattern. Couldn't resist the urge to blog about it, at least, until I get the fuller explanation and can put up a page on the ORU website.



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