Steven J. Pemberton's Blog, page 7
December 29, 2020
2020 Retrospective
I set myself only one goal this year. That was to finish The Dragons of Asdanund, which I published earlier this month. As usual, I did a few other things that I think are worth mentioning -
- I published two instalments of my contribution to the Fox Universe/Earth-F project, which you can read for free on Wattpad. They're about a globe-trotting Chinese detective called Doctor Fung and his American sidekick Dan Barrister. I describe the stories as Hercules Poirot meets Indiana Jones. Go here if you want to read them. (You might need to create an account, but you can use Facebook or Google to log in too.)
- I published a new short story for my newsletter subscribers, called Theory and Practice. The police in the city of Tsan investigate an inventor over complaints of excessive use of magic. She's definitely hiding something, but is it a crime, or a new invention, or just an old source of shame? This story is set in the same world as my Dragonrider books and The Schemes of Raltarn & Tomaz, but is spoiler-free. To read it (and previous stories for subscribers), please join my newsletter. The welcome email will contain a link to the stories.
- I wrote two science fiction short stories, and am most of the way through a third. These will be included in a collection that I'll release in the new year, though the third is quite long, and might well end up as a book in its own right.
- I contributed to a literary festival run by our local council. Thanks to the pandemic, this had to be virtual, and so there's video evidence. I talked about my editing process, since I was editing The Dragons of Asdanund at the time, and read a bit of that book. You can watch me here (about six minutes) or watch the whole festival here (about ninety minutes).
Overall, I'm pleased with what I've achieved, though this has been one year I'll definitely be glad to leave behind. I know I'm one of the lucky ones - I still have a full-time job, and can work from home, and nobody I know has died of the virus or been left seriously ill by it. And yet my (admittedly modest) social interaction has all but disappeared. I haven't seen any of my family since this time last year, and I haven't been more than a couple of miles from home since March. It shames me that I live in a country that's one of the richest in the world and has one of the highest death rates from the virus. It shames me more that some of my compatriots aren't ashamed of this.
(This is not a political blog, but wanting people not to die from preventable diseases shouldn't be a political issue.)
Anyway - good riddance, 2020. Come back in a few days to see what I've got planned for 2021.
- I published two instalments of my contribution to the Fox Universe/Earth-F project, which you can read for free on Wattpad. They're about a globe-trotting Chinese detective called Doctor Fung and his American sidekick Dan Barrister. I describe the stories as Hercules Poirot meets Indiana Jones. Go here if you want to read them. (You might need to create an account, but you can use Facebook or Google to log in too.)
- I published a new short story for my newsletter subscribers, called Theory and Practice. The police in the city of Tsan investigate an inventor over complaints of excessive use of magic. She's definitely hiding something, but is it a crime, or a new invention, or just an old source of shame? This story is set in the same world as my Dragonrider books and The Schemes of Raltarn & Tomaz, but is spoiler-free. To read it (and previous stories for subscribers), please join my newsletter. The welcome email will contain a link to the stories.
- I wrote two science fiction short stories, and am most of the way through a third. These will be included in a collection that I'll release in the new year, though the third is quite long, and might well end up as a book in its own right.
- I contributed to a literary festival run by our local council. Thanks to the pandemic, this had to be virtual, and so there's video evidence. I talked about my editing process, since I was editing The Dragons of Asdanund at the time, and read a bit of that book. You can watch me here (about six minutes) or watch the whole festival here (about ninety minutes).
Overall, I'm pleased with what I've achieved, though this has been one year I'll definitely be glad to leave behind. I know I'm one of the lucky ones - I still have a full-time job, and can work from home, and nobody I know has died of the virus or been left seriously ill by it. And yet my (admittedly modest) social interaction has all but disappeared. I haven't seen any of my family since this time last year, and I haven't been more than a couple of miles from home since March. It shames me that I live in a country that's one of the richest in the world and has one of the highest death rates from the virus. It shames me more that some of my compatriots aren't ashamed of this.
(This is not a political blog, but wanting people not to die from preventable diseases shouldn't be a political issue.)
Anyway - good riddance, 2020. Come back in a few days to see what I've got planned for 2021.
December 11, 2020
The Dragons of Asdanund is on sale!
I'm delighted to announce that my new novel, The Dragons of Asdanund, is now available from all your favourite ebook retailers, priced at just $3.99. As you probably know if you've been reading this blog regularly, it's the second volume of my fantasy series The Schemes of Raltarn & Tomaz, and is the sequel to 2014's The Mirrors of Elangir.
Here's the blurb:
After their adventures in Elangir, Raltarn and his comrades on Silver Dolphin begin the voyage home to Asdanund. Raltarn hopes that his share of the treasure will be enough for a dowry for his fiancée Shanu. The warship Glorious has gone ahead with a cargo of magical weapons that might help to win the long war against Nuhys. Disaster strikes Glorious, and the only survivor refuses to say what happened.
Halfway home, they discover they’re too late. The war is over, and Asdanund is now under Nuhysean rule. A retired Asdanundish admiral recruits Silver Dolphin to carry a raiding party to Asdanund. He asks Raltarn to join the party, as he’s the only magician they have. Raltarn agrees, hoping to be reunited with Shanu. But what hope does a man with no military experience have in a country that’s now overrun with dragons?
Here's the first (very short) chapter. Be warned it has some major spoilers for The Mirrors of Elangir.
A drizzly mist had descended by the time we got close enough to Glorious to hail her. To nobody’s surprise, the lookout’s shouts produced no response. The warship hadn’t moved since we spotted her an hour ago. She seemed to be listing. Had she struck a rock? I’d thought the sea was quite deep here.
“Raltarn!” My father, Rathkarn, called to me from the main deck, where he stood by my uncle, his brother Tomaz. I still hadn’t got used to his being alive after a decade of believing he’d been killed in a burglary gone wrong… and I still hadn’t quite forgiven Uncle for not telling me the truth about him. I descended from the forecastle, moving slowly so as not to slip on the wet planks.
Father gestured to Uncle and said, “Will you talk some sense into him?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The Captain wants to send the boat over to the warship,” said Father.
“I don’t see how that’s any concern of ours,” I said. “Besides, if this mist settles, we’re stuck here until the wind gets up enough to clear it.”
“No good will come of this,” Father replied. “There’s nobody above deck. Half her sails are missing, and the rest are frittered. But she couldn’t have been caught in a storm, because she was only half a day ahead of us. And she’s not flying a distress flag, so whatever happened happened quickly.”
“If there’s something around here that’s a danger to a warship,” I said, “we ought to know about it.”
“No,” said Father, “we ought to get away from it.”
“If the Captain wants to investigate,” said Uncle, “we investigate.”
“You’re his employers,” said Father. “Tell him you’re in a hurry to get back to Asdanund.”
“We are,” I replied, “but the Captain of Glorious said we were obliged to help them under the Emergency Articles. He never rescinded that order, as far as I know.”
“He abandoned you!” Father exclaimed.
“We abandoned him, strictly speaking,” said Uncle. “And even without the Emergency Articles, what about the well-being of your fellow men?”
“I’ve never known you to show much concern for that,” Father muttered.
A splash from the other side of the ship told me our boat had been launched.
Father’s gaze shifted to the men climbing over the railing to descend to the boat. “Admit it—you’re hoping the Elangics who Buronoskol put on that ship went mad and killed everyone, so you can help yourself to the artefacts he gave them.”
Uncle snorted. “If that is what I want, what are you so worried about?”
Father’s gaze returned to Glorious. “That not all of them are dead.”
Here's the blurb:
After their adventures in Elangir, Raltarn and his comrades on Silver Dolphin begin the voyage home to Asdanund. Raltarn hopes that his share of the treasure will be enough for a dowry for his fiancée Shanu. The warship Glorious has gone ahead with a cargo of magical weapons that might help to win the long war against Nuhys. Disaster strikes Glorious, and the only survivor refuses to say what happened.
Halfway home, they discover they’re too late. The war is over, and Asdanund is now under Nuhysean rule. A retired Asdanundish admiral recruits Silver Dolphin to carry a raiding party to Asdanund. He asks Raltarn to join the party, as he’s the only magician they have. Raltarn agrees, hoping to be reunited with Shanu. But what hope does a man with no military experience have in a country that’s now overrun with dragons?
Here's the first (very short) chapter. Be warned it has some major spoilers for The Mirrors of Elangir.
A drizzly mist had descended by the time we got close enough to Glorious to hail her. To nobody’s surprise, the lookout’s shouts produced no response. The warship hadn’t moved since we spotted her an hour ago. She seemed to be listing. Had she struck a rock? I’d thought the sea was quite deep here.
“Raltarn!” My father, Rathkarn, called to me from the main deck, where he stood by my uncle, his brother Tomaz. I still hadn’t got used to his being alive after a decade of believing he’d been killed in a burglary gone wrong… and I still hadn’t quite forgiven Uncle for not telling me the truth about him. I descended from the forecastle, moving slowly so as not to slip on the wet planks.
Father gestured to Uncle and said, “Will you talk some sense into him?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The Captain wants to send the boat over to the warship,” said Father.
“I don’t see how that’s any concern of ours,” I said. “Besides, if this mist settles, we’re stuck here until the wind gets up enough to clear it.”
“No good will come of this,” Father replied. “There’s nobody above deck. Half her sails are missing, and the rest are frittered. But she couldn’t have been caught in a storm, because she was only half a day ahead of us. And she’s not flying a distress flag, so whatever happened happened quickly.”
“If there’s something around here that’s a danger to a warship,” I said, “we ought to know about it.”
“No,” said Father, “we ought to get away from it.”
“If the Captain wants to investigate,” said Uncle, “we investigate.”
“You’re his employers,” said Father. “Tell him you’re in a hurry to get back to Asdanund.”
“We are,” I replied, “but the Captain of Glorious said we were obliged to help them under the Emergency Articles. He never rescinded that order, as far as I know.”
“He abandoned you!” Father exclaimed.
“We abandoned him, strictly speaking,” said Uncle. “And even without the Emergency Articles, what about the well-being of your fellow men?”
“I’ve never known you to show much concern for that,” Father muttered.
A splash from the other side of the ship told me our boat had been launched.
Father’s gaze shifted to the men climbing over the railing to descend to the boat. “Admit it—you’re hoping the Elangics who Buronoskol put on that ship went mad and killed everyone, so you can help yourself to the artefacts he gave them.”
Uncle snorted. “If that is what I want, what are you so worried about?”
Father’s gaze returned to Glorious. “That not all of them are dead.”
November 30, 2020
November's Writing Progress
Still waiting to hear back from the last beta reader for The Dragons of Asdanund. I made a few more tweaks to it, wrote the blurb and drew the maps. While you wait, I might as well tease you with the blurb...
After their adventures in Elangir, Raltarn and his comrades on Silver Dolphin begin the voyage home to Asdanund. Raltarn hopes that his share of the treasure will be enough for a dowry for his fiancée Shanu. The warship Glorious has gone ahead with a cargo of magical weapons that might help to win the long war against Nuhys. Disaster strikes Glorious, and the only survivor refuses to say what happened.
Halfway home, they discover they’re too late. The war is over, and Asdanund is now under Nuhysean rule. A retired Asdanundish admiral recruits Silver Dolphin to carry a raiding party to Asdanund. He asks Raltarn to join the party, as he’s the only magician they have. Raltarn agrees, hoping to be reunited with Shanu. But what hope does a man with no military experience have in a country that’s now overrun with dragons?
I also carried on with the science fiction short story that I started last month. I thought of a slightly less spoiler-ish working title, Command Authority, and I now have about 12,500 words of it. (So technically, it's no longer a short story. But never mind...)
After their adventures in Elangir, Raltarn and his comrades on Silver Dolphin begin the voyage home to Asdanund. Raltarn hopes that his share of the treasure will be enough for a dowry for his fiancée Shanu. The warship Glorious has gone ahead with a cargo of magical weapons that might help to win the long war against Nuhys. Disaster strikes Glorious, and the only survivor refuses to say what happened.
Halfway home, they discover they’re too late. The war is over, and Asdanund is now under Nuhysean rule. A retired Asdanundish admiral recruits Silver Dolphin to carry a raiding party to Asdanund. He asks Raltarn to join the party, as he’s the only magician they have. Raltarn agrees, hoping to be reunited with Shanu. But what hope does a man with no military experience have in a country that’s now overrun with dragons?
I also carried on with the science fiction short story that I started last month. I thought of a slightly less spoiler-ish working title, Command Authority, and I now have about 12,500 words of it. (So technically, it's no longer a short story. But never mind...)
October 31, 2020
October's Writing Progress
I finished my second Doctor Fung serial, The Case of the Missing Spy. It came in at about 18,000 words. You can read it for free on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/971055223-doc... Below is the blurb for it:
March 1942. Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister are summoned to a mysterious meeting in New York City, and travel across the USA on a luxurious train to get there. They hope for an uneventful journey, but the forces of evil never rest. An FBI agent seeks the help of Dan and the Doctor in catching a suspected German spy. But perhaps the agent - and the spy - are not who they seem. And who - or what - lurks in the room next to Dan and the Doctor, casting fear into the hearts of any who dare approach?
It has spoilers for the first serial, The Case of the Missing Shells, so if you're a new reader you might want to start with that, which is here: https://www.wattpad.com/971053641-doc...
Most of the beta readers for The Dragons of Asdanund have come back with their comments, which are generally quite positive. While I wait for the rest, I've started another short story for the Racing the Storm sci-fi collection. It has a working title, but I can't tell you what it is, because if you've heard of the thing it refers to, you'll be able to guess the ending. D'oh!
March 1942. Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister are summoned to a mysterious meeting in New York City, and travel across the USA on a luxurious train to get there. They hope for an uneventful journey, but the forces of evil never rest. An FBI agent seeks the help of Dan and the Doctor in catching a suspected German spy. But perhaps the agent - and the spy - are not who they seem. And who - or what - lurks in the room next to Dan and the Doctor, casting fear into the hearts of any who dare approach?
It has spoilers for the first serial, The Case of the Missing Shells, so if you're a new reader you might want to start with that, which is here: https://www.wattpad.com/971053641-doc...
Most of the beta readers for The Dragons of Asdanund have come back with their comments, which are generally quite positive. While I wait for the rest, I've started another short story for the Racing the Storm sci-fi collection. It has a working title, but I can't tell you what it is, because if you've heard of the thing it refers to, you'll be able to guess the ending. D'oh!
September 30, 2020
September's Writing Progress
I finished the short story that I mentioned in last month's post. It came in at about 9,000 words. The ending is wide open for a sequel, though I don't know if I'll write one. In a novel, you should usually ask a big question and then answer it, but in a short story, it's OK to just ask a big question and let the reader decide the answer for themselves.
I realised that I now have nearly enough short stories to make a collection (eight of them, totalling about 25,000 words), so I think that'll be my next project after The Dragons of Asdanund is out of the way. It'll be called Racing the Storm, with the usual caveat of "unless I think of something I like better." This will also be the title of one of the stories, which I haven't written yet. It comes from a picture I drew many years ago that I thought would make a good cover.
I also resumed The Case of the Missing Spy, my second Doctor Fung story. I added about 2,000 words to it, and I'm closing in on the end.
I realised that I now have nearly enough short stories to make a collection (eight of them, totalling about 25,000 words), so I think that'll be my next project after The Dragons of Asdanund is out of the way. It'll be called Racing the Storm, with the usual caveat of "unless I think of something I like better." This will also be the title of one of the stories, which I haven't written yet. It comes from a picture I drew many years ago that I thought would make a good cover.
I also resumed The Case of the Missing Spy, my second Doctor Fung story. I added about 2,000 words to it, and I'm closing in on the end.
August 31, 2020
August's Writing Progress
I completed the third draft of The Dragons of Asdanund. This is the language pass, or the right words in the right order.
I decided to try something different to help me find spelling and grammatical errors. I've noticed that when I'm trying to read closely to find those kinds of mistakes, I tend to get caught up in the story and start looking for plot holes and continuity errors - which are important, but not what I'm supposed to be looking for.
So I wrote a little program that loads the entire manuscript and outputs the paragraphs in a random order. (I'd like to have reordered the individual sentences, but for boring technical reasons, that's harder than reordering paragraphs.) I thought that if I read the paragraphs in that order, I'd be able to concentrate on the spelling and grammar, because I wouldn't know the context. But it turned out that because I'd been working so closely with the text, I could usually make a good guess as to what scene a paragraph came from. Still, I found five paragraphs with errors that way, which I thought was pretty good going out of 3811 paragraphs.
Something else I've noticed is that most of my mistakes are in sentences that have lots of short words. Most people read by recognising an entire word at once. But the recognition process isn't perfect. If a sentence has a mistake, your brain is prone to substituting the word that it knows should be there. This is more likely with short words than long ones, possible because they have fewer features that you can use to distinguish them from one another. So I searched the manuscript for paragraphs that had two words of two letters with five or fewer characters between them. This picks out things like "on top of", "to save it" and "so I put my". About a quarter of the paragraphs had a match, and I found three more errors (which I'd missed by reading in a random order).
Then I read the whole book aloud in the right order, to catch awkwardly-worded sentences (not wrong, just could be worded better). This found eleven errors...
So once I'd fixed all those errors (plus some plot holes and continuity problems), I sent the book off to my beta readers. Depending on when they come back to me, and on how many problems they find, the book should be on sale in the next month or two.
While I wait for the betas, I started another standalone short story, but I can't tell you much about that at the moment - not even the working title, because it's a massive spoiler...
I decided to try something different to help me find spelling and grammatical errors. I've noticed that when I'm trying to read closely to find those kinds of mistakes, I tend to get caught up in the story and start looking for plot holes and continuity errors - which are important, but not what I'm supposed to be looking for.
So I wrote a little program that loads the entire manuscript and outputs the paragraphs in a random order. (I'd like to have reordered the individual sentences, but for boring technical reasons, that's harder than reordering paragraphs.) I thought that if I read the paragraphs in that order, I'd be able to concentrate on the spelling and grammar, because I wouldn't know the context. But it turned out that because I'd been working so closely with the text, I could usually make a good guess as to what scene a paragraph came from. Still, I found five paragraphs with errors that way, which I thought was pretty good going out of 3811 paragraphs.
Something else I've noticed is that most of my mistakes are in sentences that have lots of short words. Most people read by recognising an entire word at once. But the recognition process isn't perfect. If a sentence has a mistake, your brain is prone to substituting the word that it knows should be there. This is more likely with short words than long ones, possible because they have fewer features that you can use to distinguish them from one another. So I searched the manuscript for paragraphs that had two words of two letters with five or fewer characters between them. This picks out things like "on top of", "to save it" and "so I put my". About a quarter of the paragraphs had a match, and I found three more errors (which I'd missed by reading in a random order).
Then I read the whole book aloud in the right order, to catch awkwardly-worded sentences (not wrong, just could be worded better). This found eleven errors...
So once I'd fixed all those errors (plus some plot holes and continuity problems), I sent the book off to my beta readers. Depending on when they come back to me, and on how many problems they find, the book should be on sale in the next month or two.
While I wait for the betas, I started another standalone short story, but I can't tell you much about that at the moment - not even the working title, because it's a massive spoiler...
July 31, 2020
July's Writing Post
Early for once...
I released a new bonus short story for my newsletter subscribers, called Theory and Practice. See the previous blog post for more details of that.
I started the second draft of The Dragons of Asdanund. Officially, this is the structural edit - big picture, or as I sometimes call it, the right scenes in the right order. This book seems fairly solid on that front. I deleted a couple of scenes that didn't move the story forward, trimmed a few more that were too long, and fixed a few plot holes and continuity errors. As I might have mentioned with previous books, I track editing progress by keeping count of the number of comments that my critique group and I made on the first draft. When I implement the change that a comment asks for, or decide to ignore it, I delete it, so when I get to zero, the second draft will be done. When I started the second draft, I had 603 comments, and I now have 60.
All being well, I'll soon be ready to start the line edit, which is the right words in the right order. This is where I switch to the highlighting mode in my editing program that flags all the words my critique group tell me I use too much, by printing them in red, and gently weep over how the screen now resembles a crime scene ;-)
I released a new bonus short story for my newsletter subscribers, called Theory and Practice. See the previous blog post for more details of that.
I started the second draft of The Dragons of Asdanund. Officially, this is the structural edit - big picture, or as I sometimes call it, the right scenes in the right order. This book seems fairly solid on that front. I deleted a couple of scenes that didn't move the story forward, trimmed a few more that were too long, and fixed a few plot holes and continuity errors. As I might have mentioned with previous books, I track editing progress by keeping count of the number of comments that my critique group and I made on the first draft. When I implement the change that a comment asks for, or decide to ignore it, I delete it, so when I get to zero, the second draft will be done. When I started the second draft, I had 603 comments, and I now have 60.
All being well, I'll soon be ready to start the line edit, which is the right words in the right order. This is where I switch to the highlighting mode in my editing program that flags all the words my critique group tell me I use too much, by printing them in red, and gently weep over how the screen now resembles a crime scene ;-)
July 26, 2020
New short story for newsletter subscribers
I just released a short story for my newsletter subscribers, called Theory and Practice.
The police in the city of Tsan investigate an inventor over complaints of excessive use of magic. She's definitely hiding something, but is it a crime, or a new invention, or just an old source of shame? Theory and Practice is set in the same world as The Schemes of Raltarn & Tomaz and the Dragonrider books, but is spoiler-free.
If you're already a subscriber, you should've received an email telling you where to read the story. If you're not a subscriber yet, click here to become one. The welcome message will tell you where to find the story.
Happy reading!
The police in the city of Tsan investigate an inventor over complaints of excessive use of magic. She's definitely hiding something, but is it a crime, or a new invention, or just an old source of shame? Theory and Practice is set in the same world as The Schemes of Raltarn & Tomaz and the Dragonrider books, but is spoiler-free.
If you're already a subscriber, you should've received an email telling you where to read the story. If you're not a subscriber yet, click here to become one. The welcome message will tell you where to find the story.
Happy reading!
July 1, 2020
June's Writing Progress
Halfway through the year already...
Smashwords are having their annual summer/winter sale this month. All through July, you can pick up any of my ebooks there for 50% off. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi... and bag a bargain. The discount should be applied automatically at the checkout. Use code SSW50 if it's not.
While I put off editing The Dragons of Asdanund and Theory and Practice, I started my second Doctor Fung story, The Case of the Missing Spy. I have about 9,000 words of that, and I'm maybe half to two-thirds of the way through it.
Our town was supposed to host a literary festival last weekend, but thanks to the virus, it had to go virtual. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nZm0... We have appearances from screenwriter Tony McHale, composer and lyricist Alexander Bermange, film historian Paul Welsh MBE, and some members of our writers' group - Lorraine Reed, Rosemary Wiseman, and some hack called Steven J Pemberton. (That'll be why his face is the thumbnail...)
I'm up first, at about two minutes in. I talk about my editing process and read a bit of The Dragons of Asdanund. Enjoy!
Smashwords are having their annual summer/winter sale this month. All through July, you can pick up any of my ebooks there for 50% off. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi... and bag a bargain. The discount should be applied automatically at the checkout. Use code SSW50 if it's not.
While I put off editing The Dragons of Asdanund and Theory and Practice, I started my second Doctor Fung story, The Case of the Missing Spy. I have about 9,000 words of that, and I'm maybe half to two-thirds of the way through it.
Our town was supposed to host a literary festival last weekend, but thanks to the virus, it had to go virtual. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nZm0... We have appearances from screenwriter Tony McHale, composer and lyricist Alexander Bermange, film historian Paul Welsh MBE, and some members of our writers' group - Lorraine Reed, Rosemary Wiseman, and some hack called Steven J Pemberton. (That'll be why his face is the thumbnail...)
I'm up first, at about two minutes in. I talk about my editing process and read a bit of The Dragons of Asdanund. Enjoy!
May 31, 2020
May's Writing Progress
The big news this month is that I finished the first draft of The Dragons of Asdanund. It came in at 112,000 words. I've put it aside for a while before I start editing, to give myself a chance to forget what I think I wrote.
While I wait to forget, I wrote the first draft of a short story to use as a bribe to convince people to join my mailing list. I already have two sci-fi short stories for that purpose, which you can read by joining the list. I decided that this new story would fit into the continuity of one of my existing series or novels. I had to be careful about spoilers, because (depending on how you count them) I have four or five continuities, and no matter which one I picked, at least one subscriber won't have read it. So I decided the story would be about characters who don't appear in the books. It's set in the same world as the Dragonrider series and The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz, during the time of the Elangic Empire (which is ancient history in the books), and it explores the development of a magical device that plays an important role in one of the books. I haven't quite settled on a title yet. Early candidates are Theory and Practice and The Gap between Theory and Practice. (Referring to the joke about "the gap between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.")
While I edit the short story and start editing The Dragons of Asdanund, I'll probably also start writing a second adventure for Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister, my characters in the Fox Universe. I have most of the pieces for this. I just need to do a bit more planning to make sure they all fit together. The working title for this one is The Case of the Missing Spy.
(The continuities are: The Barefoot Healer, Dragonrider, The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz, Escape Velocity and Simon and the Birthday Wish. Dragonrider series and The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz can count as one, because they're set in the same world, about a thousand years apart.)
While I wait to forget, I wrote the first draft of a short story to use as a bribe to convince people to join my mailing list. I already have two sci-fi short stories for that purpose, which you can read by joining the list. I decided that this new story would fit into the continuity of one of my existing series or novels. I had to be careful about spoilers, because (depending on how you count them) I have four or five continuities, and no matter which one I picked, at least one subscriber won't have read it. So I decided the story would be about characters who don't appear in the books. It's set in the same world as the Dragonrider series and The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz, during the time of the Elangic Empire (which is ancient history in the books), and it explores the development of a magical device that plays an important role in one of the books. I haven't quite settled on a title yet. Early candidates are Theory and Practice and The Gap between Theory and Practice. (Referring to the joke about "the gap between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.")
While I edit the short story and start editing The Dragons of Asdanund, I'll probably also start writing a second adventure for Doctor Fung and Dan Barrister, my characters in the Fox Universe. I have most of the pieces for this. I just need to do a bit more planning to make sure they all fit together. The working title for this one is The Case of the Missing Spy.
(The continuities are: The Barefoot Healer, Dragonrider, The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz, Escape Velocity and Simon and the Birthday Wish. Dragonrider series and The Schemes of Raltarn and Tomaz can count as one, because they're set in the same world, about a thousand years apart.)
