Newsletter #28 mailed out 4 July 2005
Dear People,
I certainly haven't been as efficient as I feel I ought to be, but I'm now hard at work on my next RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera. The working title is now SOME GOLDEN HARBOR, from the same stanza of Tennyson in which the previous working title (In Sunless Gulfs) appeared. (And by the way, my note referred to the poem as The Nineteenth Century, which drove me nuts because I couldn't find it again in the [complete] Poems and Plays. Thanks to my webmaster, I now know that the real title is Prefatory Sonnet: To the Nineteenth Century. Some things are harder than they ought to be.)
The plot took a while, a lot longer than I was comfortable with. Dropping the novel plotting just as things were beginning to jell in order to write a novelet for the tsunami relief anthology was not just a break of the time spent writing: it seems to have set me back to square one on the novel plot. I didn't expect that, because I'd been compiling data which was still there when I finished the novelet. Mentally, though, I'd wiped my novel files and had to start over: my working notes are simply a record of my mental processes, not the purpose of those processes.
On the credit side, I plotted the novelet in less than 24 hours and wrote the piece itself very quickly (for me). And you know, I'd do the same thing again (and probably will have to one of these days) under similar circumstances. My reasons for stopping everything to write the novelet were valid and remain valid.
A very long time ago I learned a lesson that applies to life generally but especially to writing: the task isn't more important to other people because of what it costs the person doing it. If you want to do it, do it--but don't complain that other people don't appreciate the great effort you put in. The effort doesn't matter to them, and it shouldn't matter. They see the result.
What took time with the plotting wasn't finding enough incident to fill a book, but rather to trim the series of incidents down so that the book would be of what I consider manageable size. I started out with 37 chapters, then whacked out and combined scenes to bring it to 31. That's the number of chapters in the most recent RCN novel, The Way to Glory, so on the face of it I'd gotten to where I wanted to be.
The thing is, The Way to Glory was longer than I'd been shooting for, and I'm absolutely certain that I'm going to have chapter creep as I begin writing. (The climactic battle gets two sentences of plot. I don't expect it to be that simple.) So I went in again and reduced what I had to 26 chapters. This is not simply a matter of incident: it involves the number of characters and the geography of the setting. It would've been much simpler to write the book I'd originally plotted, but I wouldn't have been happy with the structure. (I have that problem with The Sharp End. The book's a favorite with a lot of people, but I grimace whenever I think about it.)
What I'm saying, basically, is that Some Golden Harbor will be the book I choose to write. Nobody's forcing me to stretch myself, in this way or any way, and I suspect I'd sell about as many books if I didn't. I'd find it harder to like myself, though, and I've got enough problems in that direction already.
Eric has finally finished The Dance of Time, the sixth and final Belisarius book, though he's going to give it one more continuity pass. (Checking how many troops were with Great Lady Sati, that sort of thing.) It's an extremely good book and brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. (Not before time, of course.) The cover is well drawn by Alan Pollack [see http://david-drake.com/news.html] and the book's scheduled as a February, 2006, Baen hardcover. (The cover on my website is a rough layout--the art won't change but the type could.)
The Fortress of Glass, the first book of The Crown of the Isles trilogy which will conclude the Isles series, will be out in April, 2006, as a Tor HC. I haven't seen the cover (which doesn't necessarily mean there isn't one yet) but Donato's doing this one too; he's a superb artist. I'm looking forward to it.
The first volume (of three) of the limited edition HC of the Complete Hammer's Slammers is due out from Night Shade Books [ http://www.nightshadebooks.com] in December, 2005. This is a hard date, but I can't at this moment tell you when the other two volumes are scheduled. The series will have interiors by John Treadaway, black & white renderings (including some half-tone effects) of his color work for the Hammer's Slammers miniature wargame book [see http://david-drake.com/hswargame.html]. They are really good.
Don Hoban, a steel craftsman trading as Rainforest Armory [ http://www.rainforestarmory.com/armory/] is planning to do a series of licensed weapons from the Isles series. In the course of our discussions I mentioned that the weapon Chalcus uses is a real yataghan that I'd gotten in a roundabout fashion. I sent him pictures of it. He asked about the writing on the blade. As it chances, a friend with some Arabic was visiting that weekend. He took a look at it and carried home a photo enlargement of the cartouche for further study. All we're sure of at this point is the date: 1792/3 (CE, that is; AH 1207), but that's much older than I dreamed it was.
I have the blade largely because it belonged to my friend Manly Wade Wellman late in life, but I now realize that it had a long existence before it came into his hands. It was a good choice for Chalcus.
Speaking of Manly, his widow Frances left me all her personal effects in her will. This included a file of Manly's manuscripts and correspondence. Since the bulk of that material had been sold to Brown University during Frances' lifetime, I donated the remainder to Brown as well. I felt the papers should all be in one place for the use of scholars. (I don't think Brown is at present a very good place for manuscript collections, to be honest, but that's another question. Frances badly needed the money at the time, and Brown offered it.)
I just got a notice from Brown, informing me that my generosity to Brown has qualified me as a Wriston Associate. If you see my name 'in a special honor roll' to that effect, don't be misled. I find this extremely funny. (My wife and I do give to the U of Iowa; that's real.)
I did another Ovid lyric, a short one [http://david-drake.com/ovid/amoresII-3]. I'm working on--I have largely roughed out--the section of the Metamorphoses covering the Fall of Phaethon, but it's going to be a while before I'm ready to put it up. (Writing a novel intervened.) It's a very striking, colorful piece and not especially difficult Latin, but it's over 400 lines. The sheer bulk takes time, not so much to translate (as I say, it's not difficult) but to smooth into a form worthy of the original. Ovid was a remarkable craftsman, and he deserves care from a translator equal to that which he lavished on the original.
There's one more convention on the news page [ http://david-drake.com/news.html]: Conestoga in Tulsa in July of 2006. I agreed without thinking about Trinoc-con (I was worried about our annual beach trip), but I managed to miss both by the grace of God. I'm not very organized, I'm afraid.
The signing at Borderlands Books in San Francisco is set now for August 17, 2005, at 7 pm. I would be delighted to see people there, and I'll sign any books I'm asked to. (well, anything I was involved with; I won't be signing copies of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, though I have a signed copy.)
The postcard offer from the previous newsletter got a good number of takers, so I will repeat and expand it here. If you send a 37-cent stamp and an address sticker (ideally self-stick on both) to: Drake/PO Box 904/Chapel Hill, NC 27514 I will send you a signed oversized postcard with the cover either of The Way to Glory or (your choice) The Far Side of the Stars, the previous RCN space opera. (I found a packet of the latter while searching for something else.)
Now, back to work. I've got a good start on Some Golden Harbor, but there's well over 100,000 words yet to write.
All best,
Dave Drake
david-drake.com
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