Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 134

Editing: When and How to Add

Back in school, most of us learned the wrong ways to add wordage to a paper to reach the required pages/words.   Use more adverbs, more adjectives, description.  Say the same thing three ways.  I remember grading a student essay for a contest that had, for instance: "So, also, in conclusion, I would add that..."

But sometimes you need more words than your first draft produced.   You have a contract that demands a minimum of 75,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 words, and you're short, not by a few hundred

Editing: Why slice & dice?

When readers question why a book has been cut,  they may think it's a simple question...but it's not.  There are both story reasons, and production/marketing reasons, to cut.   Stories are rarely hurt by thoughtful, skillful cutting.  (They may be hurt by ignorant hacking by incompetent editors, but this is rarer than lack of editing.  Most of us have encountered books with large leaden lumps that slow down a  story and make it hard or tedious to read.) 
Type your cut contents here.

Let's talk pr

A day off, sortakinda

I have dealt with all my editor's requests (I hope, in the way she wants) and have cut as much as I can without a break from the book,and redone the chapter breaks & numbers.

I was at the point of taking individual words out, turning them over in my mental hands, looking back at the page, and saying "Nope...I really do need a noun in this sentence..."  I can't see the work clearly right now, so it's time to back off, give it 24 hours, and the take another look.

I'd like to shrink it another 750 wo

Iris pictures

Some pictures of water irises are up on the 80 acres blog.   We have water irises in the back yard water garden and also over at Owl Pavilion.  The water at Fox isn't big enough for even one iris plant.  

Release Date!

The next book, the Paksenarrion-universe Oath of Fealty, will be released in March next year from Del Rey.

(Fireworks went off in my head...that's my birthday month.)

If anyone hasn't met Paks and now thinks maybe that would be a good idea, the first volume of her story, Sheepfarmer's Daughter,  is on the Baen Free Library.   (Look in the 'books' section to the left, and then find it by title.)    The other two books of The Deed of Paksenarrion and the two in The Legacy of Gird were also published

Monday and a half...

Monday was consumed by the final bits of tax prep (writing checks for taxes & IRAs, fumbling things into envelopes, mailing them...), some volunteer work stuff,  and editing work on the new book.  The new new book is jealous and annoyed that I'm not first-drafting it.  Patience, I tell it.   Your time will return.

I worked on revisions until late last night, and started in again when I got up today.   Very close to done (I hope) but with a remaining tangle to be sorted out with my editor...I thin

Easter

Happy Easter to those who celebrate.

I'm home again but barely awake/coherent/etc.  after three intense days of worship and music.  

Name-calling: Betty Brown and Asian-American Names

Betty Brown is the kind of Texas legislator that the Elephant clan point to with pride.   She and her husband own a ranch that's been in her family four generations.  She's a nice little white-haired grandmother.   She's done the appropriate-for-conservative-women volunteer things--historical society, etc.   She's been active in and supportive of her church (her official bio on the Texas House site doesn't say which, but having been in her home area last fall, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts

Wildfires

Large fires in thinly populated areas with little scenic value (e.g., no big beautiful national parks or forests) get little play in the national media.  However, it's worth mentioning that Texas and Oklahoma are once more dealing with many many thousands of acres of wildfires.   Yesterday, the smoke from fires well to the north permeated the air in central and SW Texas. 

Texas has 254 counties.   The governor has asked FEMA for an emergency declaration for 199 of them.  Many are rural counties

80 Acres; Website update

http://www.80acresonline.org/

Species lists are now live on the website.  When you mouse over the Species List, three choices appear: birds, plants, and "zoology" (which in this instance means non-bird wildlife.)

And each of these lists has three pictures of representative species up there on the top green line.

Ruta's a genius.