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I’m getting closer to the end of this round of revisions on the portal fantasy and my brain is going a bit sideways... so I started reading Fortune’s Fool to prep for working on Fool’s Promise again. I thought a read-along thread might be fun, so here it is. Thread!
Oh, Twitter... how I love that it isn't possible to edit tweets and threads... maybe I can put the link to my book in the right place now?? https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Fool-Eterean-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B07ST8KQ87
Ok, so here we go... I read part 1 yesterday, not meaning to. My plan was to get the revisions for Dreams (the portal fantasy) out of the way and then clear the decks for all things Eterean Empire. But--brain, sideways. I was a little nervous about starting, though.
I wasn't sure it would hold up. Would I still like it? Or would it make me cringe? I've written a lot of words since I published FF. I was struck by how distant Kyrra felt to me... but that was really what the present tense was for. Kyrra *wants* to keep you at arms length.
(She has some secrets, after all.)
And then--Razi! Nibas! Hello! It's kind of funny, remembering the original beginning, which did not feature Razi because he didn't exist yet and instead had a bouncer missing fingers who never showed up again.
Dang it--Kyrra's room at Vadz's has a ladder entry?? Guess I'll be changing that in Kinless (another Kyrra/Razi/Nibas novella in progress). These are the kinds of details I never think to write down.
p. 26 Some things make me laugh and I can't help it...
"I'm not looking to get hooked up with real gunrunners. I just need a misplaced pistol."
Vadz leans on his elbows. "Nobody *misplaces* a pistol."
"I'm not looking to get hooked up with real gunrunners. I just need a misplaced pistol."
Vadz leans on his elbows. "Nobody *misplaces* a pistol."
And the Night Market...I remember getting the idea for the Night Market from a Smithsonian article about how in the winter people used to sleep at dark, then wake up for hours in the middle of the night in which they visited, did things, etc-then went home and back to sleep.
All right, so I still like Aleya a lot... and the poster in ch. 3 still makes me choke up. (Easter egg alert! If you've read Smuggler's Fortune, did you notice the poster??) I'm feeling better about this read, so onto Part 2 later today, probably...
All right, so yesterday’s plans to start pt 2 were derailed, but today it looks like it’s going to rain which means I’ll try to read a little instead of going on a walk with the kiddos. Here we go, ch 4...
Ch 4 is the first past chapter and we’re going back in time to see Kyrra as a teenager. This is also where I remember that I have a country named Carrata based on Portugal and a Carratan character trying to lobby me for inclusion in future books. (Telling him to wait his turn.)
“My mother said I was born screaming and didn’t stop until I was six months old.” I might have some personal experience with this.
It really strikes me how much of the original draft actually survives in this chapter. I did add a few things-the dinner, for instance, where Cassis goes on about the plays (and inventing the plays that he talks about was fun,too)-but most of this was in the earliest drafts.
I cleaned up the actual writing, of course, turned up the volume and delved deeper into the emotions, and tightened up the scenes... but it was mostly revision instead of heavy rewriting.
Ah, the ending of this chapter still makes me wince. In a good way.
Time for some lunchtime reading! I'm on ch 5, and I'm rethinking trying to keep THE WHOLE BOOK to one thread, so probably I'll do 2 threads: first half and second half. Ch. 5 starts on p 77 of my paperback, so we still have a way to go.
"My father had come into the parched yellow courtyard formed by the silk-houses, accompanied by a tall, dust-covered man carrying a bag and an axe, a knife on one hip and a sword on the other."
Why, hello, Arsenault, it's nice to meet you again
Why, hello, Arsenault, it's nice to meet you again
Also, for the curious...*most* of the silk stuff is fairly accurate as far as I could tell from research, *some* of it is invented and some of it is somewhat exaggerated. In traditional silkmaking, women do pull apart cocoons with their fingernails, but...
...the combergirls' fingernails with the notches cut into them? That's reasonably invented, as far as I can tell. Also, the giant silk moths with burgundy cocoons are a result of me saying, "Wait, I'm a fantasy writer, I should make shit up."
It's interesting to read the water bucket scene again, because I play around with it in Fool's Promise. Kyrra's first memory of Arsenault is when he walks into the courtyard with her father, but from Arsenault's POV, his first encounter with Kyrra is her struggle with the bucket.
Well, I had a short break to referee my 10 and 8 yos and do laundry, then I took the book outside with the kids and read the rest of ch 5 and 6. Wanted to keep going, which is a good sign...but when I say I write the kind of books I like to read, I really do mean it. 
(This is why, though; it takes a long time to write these books and many, many, many read -throughs, and if I can't enjoy myself while I'm doing it, I would really, really hate my life.)
Also, ch 5 has Arsenault's philosophy in a nutshell: "I suppose you have a right to be wary of wolves, but just because you're fallen, do you think it means you have to stay down in the dirt?"
And ch 6 is one of my favorite chapters in the book. Ch 5 had a lot of new scenes added to it, because I needed to fill in Arsenault and Kyrra's relationship. But 6 was mostly just revised.
The way Arsenault interacts with Kyrra was inspired by watching occupational and physical therapists work with my kids. They care, a lot, about the kids, but they still make the kids do the hard things because they believe they can. It can be both painful and beautiful to watch.
And ch 6 has this exchange:
"Are you kidnapping me?"
"Why would I need to kidnap you? You came on your own."
"Are you kidnapping me?"
"Why would I need to kidnap you? You came on your own."
And Lobardin, of course. Lobardin is a "mushroom" character; he just showed up, fully formed, out of nowhere. I cut a lot of his scenes to get the word count down, which I regret. Fortunately, he seems to definitely have a role in book 2 (and beyond)... *whistles innocently*
Ok, time for Ch 7 and then this thread is getting ridiculously long, so I think I'll start a new thread for part 3... It's almost like I wrote a big book or something. 
