Hello, and welcome to the fourth Misenchanted Guestbook Archive, covering July through October of 2000!

Because the Guestbook itself gets unwieldy every so often I remove older posts, but I always save copies on my own machine first.

Three previous archives exist, covering the period from January through April, 2000, May through June 7, 2000, and the rest of June, 2000. A fifth archive will be added when I get around to it.

Because it's an archive and you can't add anything, I've reversed the sequence -- the oldest messages are at the top, and you can just read down. Nothing else here will be changed. I've kept the original color scheme and illo. (The font changed sometime between September 2000 and February 2001, but I'm not sure when; this archive uses the later font.)

-- Lawrence Watt-Evans

Illustration by Kiri Evans

could you post the current results of the next Ethshar novel poll?

Sure...

The Spriggan Mirror: 37
The Wizard's Garden: 31
The Final Calling: 20
A Stranger in the Forest: 16
At the Sign of the Crimson Wolf: 15
The Rune of the Implacable Stalker: 12
The Vondish Ambassador: 9
Azraya of Ethshar: 7
A Slave of Wizardry: 5
A Feather from Her Wing: 3
other: 4

Lawrence, it appears the links in the first sentence under "Short Fiction and More..." are broken. I got that 404 nasty gram.

Oh, yeah -- I see the problem. Thanks. I'll fix it.

Lawrence,

any idea who will be the translator for Dragon Weather and Dragon Society?

Is this something writers have a say about?

I'm afraid I have no idea who'll be doing the translation. Sometimes an author can ask for a specific translator, but there's no guarantee you'll get him (or her).

I don't know enough about German translators to know who's good and who isn't.

How goes Dragon Society? Last time I checked you said you were behind schedule.

Oh, I'm still behind schedule. I think I'm more than halfway, and am still expecting to finish it in October.

I didn't write anything today, though, because I was reading the new Harry Potter book.

Now I get to wait a year for #5!

Ya, Mac Gorilla has been neglected because of Harry Potter. Great stuff, those books!

Of course, Some of us Ethshar fans sort of feel the same way..."You mean I have to wait how long between books?" =)

Well, assuming I stay on good terms with Tor, I expect to be writing a new Ethshar novel roughly every 18 months to two years. I do apologize for that seven-year gap, but things got complicated.

That is ok, at least your comming out with a new one. It would have been sad if you never wrote another one.

Also, I feel like such a smuck...I have been working on my own FRPG for so long I finally got to read Dragon weather on Vacation over the Fourth of July and all I can say is....When does Dragon Society come out? That is an awesome book Lawrence. Will you autograph a copy of it for me if I send you one or can I buy an autographed copy of it off you?

Sure, I'll autograph DRAGON WEATHER for you; you can send me a copy at P.O. Box 3912, Gaithersburg MD 20885, or I can sell you one, your choice. I do have a few extras. Cover price plus $3.20 shipping, and I'll take a check at the post office box, or you can use Mastercard or Visa through PayPal. I'm pleased you like the book.

As for THE DRAGON SOCIETY, my best guess is fall 2001 publication. It's more than half written now, but there's still a ways to go.

I had the book for 4 months, but didn't have time to read it. Now I have to track down your Lord of Dus series. I will send you a check for the book and autograph. Thanks!!!!

How many pages do you think Dragon Society will be?

If anyone knows where I can get the Lord of Dus series please let me know.

I have the whole series, if you want it. If you email me a mailing address, I'll send 'em. I four copies of the entire series(don't ask--long story).

At this point I'm really not sure how long THE DRAGON SOCIETY will be, except probably not as long as DRAGON WEATHER.

It'll be as long as it needs to be, Same for the third one, DRAGON VENOM.

(At times I've been unsure whether the entire series would be two, three, four, or even five books, but right now it looks like three.)

I'll keep an eye out for the check.

Lawrence, what was the most difficult book to write? Easiest? just curious.

It's really hard to say. Often the difficulty will change drastically from one portion of a book to the next.

_The Nightmare People_ was not exactly difficult, but _uncomfortable_ to write -- if I intended to scare readers, then I had to scare myself.

_The Chromosomal Code_ was really tough, but I'm not sure why.

Easiest? I really don't know.

Lawrence, I just had to let you know how much your writing influences people....I let my Nephew start reading "Touched by The Gods" this weekend and He couldn't put it down. He's 15 years old and His mom couldn't believe how much he was reading. It was pretty funny, because I asked her if she ever let him read Fantasy before and she said no. So his first experience is you work...I thought that was fitting.

Thanks for telling me; I love to hear about things like that!

I'm just re-reading "Touched by the Gods". It has a lot of names in it, made me mistake some of the characters the first time :-)

Anyway, there's a place called Rishna Gabidell. Where have I heard that name before? Or is this just a sort of Deja Vu?

And is it just me, or does "Tebas Tudan" sound a bit like "Tobas of Telven"?

Marcus

Hi -- sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I was in California, away from my computer.

Anyway, Rishna Gabidell doesn't appear anywhere else that I know of, so it must just be deja vu.

And no, Tebas Tudan isn't intended to sound anything like Tobas of Telven, though I do see the similarity now that you mention it. Both names were derived according to the linguistic rules I'd set up for that culture, and it's just a coincidence that the Diknoi for "worthy pupil" came out sounding like an Ethsharitic name.

So lawrence, Are you saying you create an entire new dialect for each culture in your mind? or do you write it out on paper?

Not a _complete_ dialect, and not every culture, but I usually give some serious thought to the linguistics of invented cultures, yes.

As examples: All Ethsharitic languages are Indo-European. Ethsharitic itself has about thirty distinct phonemes, conjugated verbs, only two cases -- a lot like English, except for having fewer phonemes. I didn't get more detailed or original because I don't _do_ much with it. It's got some resemblances to Sanskrit, some to English, some to Spanish, doesn't really fit in any existing language family; mostly uses open front vowels, only has two nasal consonants (N and M).

Domdur, on the other hand, while it's also Indo-European (I'm lazy), draws more on Russian and German sound-patterns and is heavily weighted toward voiced consonants and closed vowels. It has five nasal consonants, but I blurred the distinctions and transliterated them all as N, M, or NG. It's got three separate noun declensions; I'm not sure how many cases, but at least four. Again, I didn't bother working out a lot of vocabulary or grammatical details -- just enough to let me invent consistent names.

Diknoi is vaguely Greeklike, and a lot less detailed, since I didn't need it much. I don't know anything about its grammar, just what it sounds like.

Man's Tongue, from _Dragon Weather_, is equally skimpy, but it's got a lot of diphthongs and semivowels -- I think it's a little like Icelandic.

Lawrence, it came to my attention that you enjoy C.S Forester's Hornblower books, and I was just wondering if you've read the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian? (Can't for the life of me remember the title of the first book, but the second is called 'Post Captain') Wonderful books, I find. :)

I have copies of _HMS Surprise_ and _The Mauritius Command_ in the basement, awaiting my attention; haven't read them yet. I did start on whichever is earlier once, but it didn't especially grab me so I put it aside until I had more time to spend on it.

I got a chance to read some Patrick O'Brien books will getting my brains fried at MacWorld last week. Very cool books!

Thanks Lawrence, I got my book on saturday....
How Dragon Society going?

that should be: How is Dragon Society going?

Well, I've been traveling for the past couple of weeks, so I haven't exactly been cranking it out, but it's doing okay. I'd say I have 60% of the first draft.

Hey! I noticed Dragon Society and Night of Madness have been added to Tor's publishing schedule. Nifty!

Not _Dragon Society_, just the paperback of _Dragon Weather_.

But yeah, it's good to see.

Finally! The paperback of Dragon Weather.

I don't like hardcovers. I buy maybe 40 or 50 books a year, and I
just don't have the space to store hardcover editions. Paperbacks
are just so much nicer to carry around, take to lunch, etc.

I gave up on Dragon Weather, though. I actually went to the library!
Man, I haven't been to a library in years. But I couldn't keep
reading all the comments here and not read Dragon Weather, so I
checked out the hardcover copy.

Amazon.com says Night of Madness is being released in hardcover.
I don't remember any other Ethshar novel having a hardcover release,
am I right?

That's right, _Night of Madness_ is the first Ethshar story in hardcover. Goes along with being the first one published by Tor, instead of Del Rey.

It won't be the last, though -- _Ithanalin's Collection_ will be a hardcover, too, according to current plans.

There will be a paperback about a year after the hardcover.

I think everyone fell a sleep. The page has been inactive for a while. I just got back from GenCon and I have to tell you, What an experience. I wish you could have been there Lawrence. I would love to meet you sometime. On a different note.

Lawrence, With all the publishers out there, how do you settle on one? Do you shop them around for the best deals?

It did get quiet here for awhile. I've been too busy to update anything -- _The Dragon Society_ and my kids are taking up all my time.

I'll be at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in a few weeks, for those who want to meet me.

As for choosing a publisher, these days that's my agent's job, pretty much. Generally, though, at any given time it's usually pretty easy to see which is the best publisher in the SF/fantasy field. At the moment it's Tor; in the past it's been Del Rey, Bantam, Ballantine, or whoever. When I was trying to sell _The Lure of the Basilisk_, back in the late 1970s, Del Rey was THE place for fantasy, so that was where I tried first -- and they bought it.

If they hadn't, I'd have looked for the second-best, and worked my way down the list. In fact, I had another novel (later rewritten as _The Cyborg and the Sorcerers_) that _did_ work its way down through about four publishers (Ace, DAW, Del Rey, and I forget who else) before I gave up and put it aside.

Sometimes a particular publisher just looks like the best "fit" for a particular story -- if I were writing military SF, for example, I'd be sending stuff to Baen. Or sometimes an editor will specifically ask me to send something, which is how _Split Heirs_ wound up at Tor when I was still mostly writing for Del Rey. And there are auctions -- _The Nightmare People_ was auctioned, and NAL/Onyx was the high bidder.

Hi all! I've been away, switching Mac gorilla to my own server. Whatta chore. I know I promised you a T Andrew and the new ones have finally gone to the printer.

Lawrence, do you ever publish stuff under a pen name, like as an experiment, as Dean Cain is said to do. Wacky question but hey I am wakcy.

Hey! Congrats!!! Ive notice for the last several months the SFBC has been advertising Dragon Weather. It's about darn time you got a little more recognition for your books. I bought a copy of it throught the Science Fiction Book Club as a gift for 12 bucks!! SFBC usually condenses the books into a smaller size, but this was the same full sized version i bought at Barnes & Noble for $25.00.
As for hardcover purchasing, It's well worth the extra money storage space when they are as good as Dragon Weather. It especially worth it when you know your going to end up reading it more than once anyways.

Thanks for the congratulations.

And yeah, I've written under other names a few times, for various reasons. I'm not yet ready to admit _which_ names, though it's getting close.

(Yes, names plural.)

Of course, Lawrence Watt-Evans is a pseudonym in the first place, as is explained somewhere around here.

Lawrence,

if not admitting the names, are you ready for admitting the reasons why you did it? At least some of them?

And regarding the hyphen in your name: It could be worse. Imagine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Schalck-Golodkowski or Wieczorek-Zeul :-) All true German names, BTW.

Marcus

Oh, why I used other names is simple enough. I can think of three reasons that have applied in my case:

I was writing in a different genre than my usual, and didn't want it to show up in the sales records the chain bookstores look at when ordering the next title.

I sold more than one story to the same anthology, and therefore used a different name for one of them.

I was writing work-for-hire and didn't want to use my usual name on it.

Sometimes it's been one of these reasons, sometimes it's been two.

wow. I was expecting a "No, building up my name is hard enough". Hmmmmmmmmm. Cue X-Files music here.....

Didn't mean to startle you; I thought you might've heard a rumor.

Anyway, I've been professionally published under at least four names, and non-professionally under at least three more. I may be forgetting some.

I mentioned earlier I was working on a spells list for Wizards based on the nifty Wizards in the Ethshar books. Well, it's gotten somewhat huge, more than 80 spells.

If anyone is interested, I have 'em over at http://www.angelfire.com/la/paw/adnd6.html in word97 format. Comments/criticism would be appreciated.

I run a campaign in the Small Kingdoms; your list Paul is very, very good. I will have to translate them in D&D terms.

Thanks. =)

Translate? Oh yeah... the 12 circles vs the 9 spell levels. When I was making the spells, I figured Circle 2 was equivalent to Spell level 1, and circle 12 was beyond 9th spell level... and just made a sort of gradient in between.

Having a circle below the DnD 1st level helps alot, because I expect Wizards to have very basic spells for 'everyday' magic, and DnD 1st level is too powerful for that.

Ohhhhh that works great! wow. all these new spells, yum!

WRT pen names:

If you're not going to go public, I won't try to do it for you. However, I asked you about one once (providing the last name as Butler, rather than the correct one).

To keep the questions generic:

- When writing licensed characters, does the work usually end up being work-for-hire plain and simple?

- I assume that writing a licensed character significantly affects your income on the book. However, my assumption has been that, if you wrote a Star Wars book (e.g.) you would get a lesser cut of the royalties, as Lucasfilms would get a chunk, but that the combination of playing with characters you might have a fondness for, plus the possibility that the big "STAR WARS" on the cover would sell more copies than your name without the "STAR WARS" combined to compensate for the lesser royalty amount.

If that is so, then revealing that you're really "Jack Sprat", writer of STAR WARS: THE UMPTEENTH BATTLE AGAINST THE REMAINS OF THE EMPIRE could mean that people who would usually ignore that book but are fans of yours would buy it. However, if you got a flat fee for working on a licensed character, then you don't care if it sells 1 copy or 1 billion (except, perhaps, a sense of professional pride.

How does writing a licensed character work, then?

I am sorry to hear about Yahoo buying SFF, it is a sad world. Yahoo just bought eGroups, which I use to communicate with my Beta testers on Mac Gorilla. Very sad.

No no no! Yahoo! didn't buy SFF-Net. SFF-Net is not for sale; it's owned by Greyware Automation, and I think it would take one heck of a large amount of money to pry that away from the current owner.

The SFWA Webring was run on a special webring server, using software owned by an outfit whose exact name I'm not sure of, to be honest, and _that's_ what Yahoo! bought. It wasn't SFF-Net; the webring was contracted out, and Yahoo! bought the contractor. So I'm still on SFF-Net, SFWA is still on SFF-Net, but I've dropped out of the Webring. In order to stay on the webring I'd need to get a Yahoo! ID and agree to terms of service that are unconscionably broad and vague.

If they get the legalities straightened out I might rejoin eventually, but I'm not sure.

By the way, I have the capability of removing duplicate posts; I hope no one minds if I do that.

As for writing licensed material, the exact deal varies, but a typical situation would be Star Trek. For a normal paperback, the author will get 6% to 10% of the cover price in royalties, depending on contract terms. For a Trek novel, the author gets 2.5% royalties, but for most folks the number of copies sold will be much higher, so it works out to be good money. Other properties might be more or less, both for the initial advance and the royalty rate.

It is legally work-for-hire, but there are almost always royalties anyway, because publishers have found they get better work that way.

(And yes, I've done licensed novels, but not Star Wars.)

Ahhh I understand now. Thanks!

No comment on the new set-up?

Spiffy is certainly a good word for it. =)

That's a nice way to seperate the two styles of webpage. I am amused by the 'Web Relics' spot down on the bottom of the left frame. How much webspace do you get through sff.net to put up this stuff?

How is the poll coming?

Oh, an amusing note about Wizard spells...

TSR (Wizards of the Coast) apparently decided that a 0th spell level is useful and included it in their long awaited 3rd edition of the ADnD rules set. And to think that Mr. Evans had it right the entire time.

=)

Altogether I think I have 80 meg of webspace, which is plenty.

I really should update the poll results, but I've been concentrating on other stuff -- like THE DRAGON SOCIETY. I've decided that THE SPRIGGAN MIRROR will be next after ITHANALIN'S COLLECTION -- back in July I worked out the plot details I needed, and a proposal has just gone off to Tor.

But I'm still interested in what's next after that...

YAY!!! Victory!

Plus another great book to look forward to. :-)

Are all the future Ethshar novels going to be roughly the same length?
Or, since you're writing longer novels these days, are you going to
do a Dragon Weather-sized Ethshar book?

On the other hand, Ethshar works well for short stories. You know what
would be neat? A collection of Ethshar short stories. You take the five
or six stories out there (I don't know if you have the rights to reprint
them, though), add in some more new stories, and Presto! The Ethshar Anthology.

I'd buy it. In paperback :)

Each Ethshar novel will be whatever length the story calls for -- some will be shorter, some longer.

As for a collection of the short stories, I do have the rights to all of the seven -- sort of; there's one that I have limited rights to. However, that's only half a book, and I'm just not interested in filling out the other half with new stories right now.

I'm considering other possibilities, though.

Ya! "The Spriggan Mirror"! I love those pesky Spriggans. I sometimes use them in my games.

Getting a hold on the short dtories is much more difficult than getting the novels.

Then again, I don't have all the books either; so I shouldn't cry out so loud :-)

Wher did I hear that the novels get reprinted in hardcover?

Marcus

I have got to trim this thing down -- it takes much too long to load!

Anyway, my agent was negotiating with Tor about possible reprints, maybe in hardcover. Unfortunately, it appears that won't happen, so once I get _The Dragon Society_ done and can spare the time, I'll be talking to a couple of print-on-demand publishers. This would, I hope, be a temporary solution until Tor changes its collective mind.

I expect that any reprints will include short stories in the back, as bonuses.

Oh -- and the Russian editions are hardcover. If you read Russian, that's the way to go.

ne panjemaju po ruski

(and please forgive any speeling/transcription mistakes)

Okay, the spiffy version is partly installed. It needs a lot of debugging, still; if you spot any obvious glitches, drop me a line.

Enjoyed your refurbished website. I missed the
articles that were at the old website. Do you
still have them up? I had been intending to ask
you if I could use them (giving you full credit of
course) to give lessons in my online writing group
Reality's Edge. I will go check out your older pages
and see if I can find the articles I remember if
you email me to say it is okay. Thanks either way.
Diane

The articles are still up -- you can find them through the "no Frills" side. I'm not sure I got the links loaded on the "Spiffy" side.

Wow! Just read at Tor that Night of Madness and the new Robert Jordan book will be out virtually at the same time. Wow! when it rains, it pours! Oh by the way, website looks great on Mac OS X Public Beta!

Mr Watt-Evans,

I want to know your opinion. I just read a poem by a seventeen year old that I think is very interesting. Do you think the boy has a future as a writer?

ESCAPE
by walren vanse

we know that further war is madness
we know, where war before meant sadness
war will now mean real extinction
so we leave behind our guns
safe we sail from fading coastlines
free away from hate and war
sailing carefee on the ocean
not returning any more
we tried to tell the world to stop
the madness, before everybody drops
but they wouldn't listen to us
told us, "oh, don't make a fuss"
now we leave them to their fate
sail away on wooden clippers
and escape in silver starships
to Orion and the Dipper
then when we were gone away
as we feared, there came a day
of judgement, which all Earth condemned
to a bright and bloody end
safe we sail from glowing ruins
free away from death and war
soaring free, through stars and oceans
we aren't returning any more.

------


I hope he keeps writing!

Hi, Paul.

Did I write that? I don't remember it.

Lawrence,

Hi! That poem was published in Entropy Vol 1 No 1. EVERYTHING in that first issue was written by you, and when it came out in January of 1972 I thought it was the coolest thing since Guttenberg.
I loved the poem -- it amazed me that someone could be clever enough to rhyme clippers with Dipper -- I especially loved the fact that you appendend the following to the bottom of it:
copyright 1971 by Wolery Music
from "Lyryk for the Dark Musyk"
used by permission of the author.

Don't forget, I was seventeen too! Forgive me if I was easily impressed. I offered right away to join the staff!

Most impressive about you was your willingness to publish a review of your own poem in the second editon of the publication....

This effort, which I refust to dignify with the term poem, is a perfect example of the stunning ineptitude of the "Now Generations"'s literary efforts. The imbecilic lack of imagination on the part of the author is betrayed by his(her) stultifying imagery, with which he(she) attains a pinnacle of mediocrity....

It goes on, and gets more vitriolic. You are lambasted for 'culpable stupidity' and 'venal ignorance of life and the nature of man'. (I thought it was bad enough that you'd been assigned to the "Now Generation")

So you impressed me doubly when you were seventeen. Once for writing a poem and the second time for troubling yourself to publish a scathing review which you somehow managed to endure by holding to the fiction that Walren was your dim witted house guest.

I posted it with the hope that those teenage fans of yours who aspire to be writers themselves will be encouraged to realize that writing gets better with time -- and to keep trying!

Paul Bradford (aging hipster)

It was in the first issue? I was probably just trying to fill space. I threw that together very quickly, on a whim.

You were easily impressed. I mean, I think I did some decent stuff in ENTROPY, but I wouldn't have cited any of the poetry as examples.

You know, I kinda liked the previous frames version of you page better... with the nice gradients on the side, and everything was listed over there. It was a breeze to navigate.

=(

I love the idea of short stories in the backs of reprints of your old books. That's a great idea! If you re-release em, I'd buy copies just to have spares around, especially with bonus short stories. I think I am missing two of your Ethshar short stories because the books they were published in are out of print. Srinita's Dragon and Portrait of a Hero. If you could publish either of those in conjunction with a reprint of your Ethshar books, I would be happy indeed!

>I could have argued, but I didn't. I thought the hyphen made it look pretty classy. I hadn't realized it would cause hassles later.

I have read about that hyphen before, but must've overlooked the "hassle" comment. What sort of hassle can be generated by that?

My kids liked the old frames version better, too. I'm debating what to do about it.

The hyphen confuses people -- they don't know whether to alphabetize me under W or E, sometimes I get listed as Lawrence-Watt Evans, etc. And for that matter, being listed under E would have meant better shelf position.

The confusion has gotten less over time, though, because more Americans have hyphenated names now than when I started, twenty years ago.

Regarding the short stories, the current plan is for Wildside Press editions of the Ethshar novels, which would indeed include the short stories. This isn't definite yet, and will probably be delayed because Wildside's publisher, John Betancourt, just broke his arm and won't be able to handle anything new for six weeks or so.

When and if they do appear, though,"Portrait of A Hero" would accompany _Blood of A Dragon_. Unfortunately, "Sirinita's Dragon" is the one short story that doesn't yet have a place assigned. It may well wind up in the back of _Ithanalin's Collection_, but I'm not sure.

The beta browser I use in Mac OS X Public Beta doesn't support frames so I can't weigh in but the page does look good!
I think reprinting the Ethshar books is a spiffy idea! My copy of "The Misenchanted Sword" has seen better days.

Hey I am gone for a little bit and the page get's revamped....I like both of them. The poem was rather cool.

I can't wait for the Night of madness.....

Hey lawrence,
How is Dragon Society coming?

Chris,
I am still waiting on my T and the books. Do you still plan on sending them?

Thanks,
Andy

_The Dragon Society_ is midway through either the second or third draft, depending on how you look at it. I'm not going to meet the October 15th deadline, but it should be done by Thanksgiving.

Once it's done I intend to get a little more serious about fixing up the webpage, but right now I don't have time. I'm glad you like the new versions.

I just wanted t say that I read all the Ethshar books and they were great. Touched by the gods wasn't my cup of tea but my dad liked it. Bought all of them at a used book store. You should recomend looking there for the out of print ones. Keep up the good work.

I love the "misenchanted" world, myths, horrors, legends, folklores, death-related stories, etc.
I just wanted to say that stories by people with an odd, and creative imagination are always welcome
in my life, for I accept them as the "norm."

Great web page! is the main page grey or is it just me? Kinda plain compared to the rest of the site. By the way, can't wait for the new Ethshar book!

It's sort of blue-grey at the moment; it changes every so often, as the fancy takes me. The blue-grey was chosen to complement the cover of GRAVEN IMAGES.

And yes, I keep it fairly plain so as to go easy on people with slow connections or old browsers who haven't yet found the no-frills version.

night of madness is out,and so far it is by far the best ethshar book yet.on page 52 and going strong ..Horaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Oh, cool! I haven't seen a copy yet, though I'd heard it had started shipping.

Hope you guys like it.

Wow! It's out? boy did I miss the turnip wagon! I know what I'll be doing tonight (besides watching Spin City!)

I must agree with the previous poster: "Night of Madness" is very good..your enthusiasm in returning to Ethshar shows. The tone reminds of the "The Misenchanted Sword". Great work!

Wow, I never thought.... I have owned Night of Madness for about a week and a half and I haven't been able to read it. That's what happens when you have a new born at home. I am glad people like it. I can't wait to try and read it this weekend.

Hey Lawrence,
There is part of you page in the Dragon Society that says it's not under contract. Is this correct? I thought you had sold it to Tor.

Just curious,
Later,
Andy

That's just way out of date. THE DRAGON SOCIETY is indeed under contract, and half-paid-for. I'm three-fourths of the way through what I think is the next-to-last draft -- when I finish this it should just need a final polish, and then it's off to New York.

(I'm not sure just which draft this _is_, though -- parts of it are only second, but other chapters are now fifth-draft...)

Are the drafts actual print outs or are they Soft Copy?

If they are print outs what do you do with them?

Later,
Andy

On novels, I don't print anything out (except the first chapter, to show people as a sample) until the whole thing's done.

I do, however, save the complete first draft to diskette before I start revising.

You don't print it out? I find it difficult myself to manipulate hundreds of pages of text on screen myself, so I guess I'll continue to deforest Canada....
No "Night of Madness" here in my end of the Universe, which is probably just as well; I have to read a James Joyce novel this semester.

Nope, I don't print it out.

I also don't keep it all in one file -- I originally did this because I was using a primitive computer that couldn't handle large files, but I decided I liked it and kept it up.

Ordinarily I have four chapters in each file. This makes it fairly easy to manipulate -- I can flip back and forth between windows.

Lawrence, with "Night of Madness" out, maybe you should pu it up change the page color to a kind of reddish-brown to match. Just an idea. I like the grey scheme you have now. Looks good with the book.

I hadn't chosen a color yet. I do intend to update the front page as soon as (a) I actually see a copy of the book, and (b) I can spare the time. Right now I'm struggling to get THE DRAGON SOCIETY finished; it's going pretty well, and I'm roughly five-sixths of the way through the penultimate draft, but it's not done yet.

You haven't seen the book yet? Don't authors get advance copies?

Ordinarily, yes, the first few copies are "office copies," sent to the publisher, and one of these is then sent to the author. The other contract copies arrive later, but that office copy is usually the first indication that a book is actually out.

I didn't get one this time. I don't know why not. I've been bitching occasionally at my editor about it; the first time she said she had no idea what went wrong, and she hasn't answered the last couple. (I think she may be in Texas for the World Fantasy Con.)

I am not happy about this.

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