My French is nowhere near what it used to be, I’ve just discovered. Once, years ago, I could comfortably read Spanish and French at the newspaper/ novel level and was working hard to add German to my language list. No more, alas. I was stunned and dismayed to discover how much I’ve simply lost. I can still manage some Spanish, both conversationally and in reading, but German has become an indecipherable sea, and while my French grammar remains, the vocabulary has all but disappeared.
However, I still read well enough that I got the general gist of a fascinating review of Create A Language Clinic (and fell back on free translation to fill in what I missed).
Reading the review, I discovered that the reader had worked through the book the same way I worked through the post; using a translation service. That’s a hard, hard way to learn to build a language—weirdly recursive, in that you’re working from a language you don’t know though a translator that translates like a multilingual drunkard with comprehension issues to convert into your language the method for creating other languages. I lift my glass to the diligent Leppiya, who definitely did the course the hard way. And apparently still got the humor. I’m glad that came through.
Have done the copyedits. Have fixed typos and clarified a few things. Have redone the font, made it all pretty for print, and now Holly Lisle’s Create A Language Clinic has passed muster and is now available for purchase.
In a few days, a revised PDF version will be available for download from the shop, free to anyone who purchased it previously. It will take me that long to get everything switched around.
The print version of Language Clinic landed on my front step late last Friday, and it turned out beautifully. I’m going through and copyediting, will do final revisions, and have the thing available for sale in the next couple of days.
Other than copyediting most of that, I did nothing writing-related over the weekend except let my sizzlin’ brain rest. Turned out to be a good plan. The opener for Create A Culture Clinic was really dragging, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to make the book useful from page one; I wanted to skip long-winded theory and go straight into creation, but theory kept wrapping its vines around my ankles and tripping me.
Something clicked last night. Here’s how the thing will go. Maybe you’ve never created a culture. If you haven’t you may be heading for a problem. Maybe you have created a culture, but it already has a problem.
The Culture Clinic will drop you right into the middle of religious, government, home and family design on page one, and you’ll be slashing your way through the thorny thickets of everything that is trite and overdone, heading straight for those fresh, exciting cultural ideas that are born from your own experiences. You may not realize it yet, but you have had worthwhile experiences.
Figuring out the problem-solving direction of the book is going to make writing it this morning a lot more fun.
It’s taken all day. It’s the only thing I’ve accomplished all day. But the Language Clinic is live and on sale now. All systems tested, everything works.
I cannot believe how much longer this took than I thought it would. I’m almost afraid to think about the rest of the Worldbuilding Course.
I’ve written over five thousand words since 4 AM, have created two full chapters and one new worksheet, and have overhauled the entire structure of the book, but the revised version of the Language Clinic is done! I’m printing off a copy for my copyeditor, and tomorrow, I will get back on track with NIGHT ECHOES and HAWKSPAR.
Thanks to feedback from my test readers, I’ve already written two entirely new chapters for the Language Clinic this morning. I’m tearing apart a third right now, and will probably emerge with two separate chapters from it. I’m closing on 110 pages, and trying very hard not to go over that. And I redid the cover for the Language Clinic (very slightly) to make sure it was clearly identifiable as part of the Worldbuilding Course (this again thanks to my test readers.)
But in the middle of doing this, I suddenly realized what the next book in the Worldbuilding Series had to be. The Create A Culture Clinic. I took twenty minutes and created the cover, to make this direction official in my own mind. I’m not setting a release date, even a tentative one, on this yet. But when I’ve finished Night Echoes/Shadow Music, I’ll start in on it.
We’re already in the outer bands of Alberto, and lined up for a direct hit, and I can’t sleep. So I’m working on the Language Clinic (editing is easier than writing right now).
Jean is offering a BookPack giveaway: A copy of Talyn, a copy of Lynn Viehl’s Dark Need, a copy of Lazette Gifford’s Muse, and a book of the reader’s choice by Tamara Siler Jones to one lucky winner. Check her site for details on how to enter.
Back to possessives and plurals.
Twenty-nine folks signed up to volunteer. I looked over their entries and did not disqualify anyone. So that meant that each person would have a 1-in-14.5 chance of being chosen. Pretty decent odds, really.
I then wrote down the numbers 1-29 on a sheet of paper, cut them into rectangles, folded them in half, and dumped the papers into a snack bowl. Each entrant’s number was his or her reply number in the request for testers post.
I chose two. I’ve emailed both testers. My testers need to agree to get their comments and suggestions back to me by Monday (I’ll email a .pdf to them first thing tomorrow morning). If either doesn’t get back to me today with an e-mail accepting the deadline, or has to disqualify himself or herself due to a busy weekend or work or whatever, I’ll select replacements. Still have the snackie bowl, still have the rest of the numbered slips of paper.
Oh? The victims?
Reply 8, and Reply 20.
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(No. I won’t leave it like that.)
Thanks to Rowan Wilson and Shawna, featured guinea pigs of the day.
Thank you to everyone who volunteered for this–you may yet be called into service.
The rest of the writing was on the sideline today. I’ll pick up with my other deadlines tomorrow morning.
Wednesdays suck in general. Today, mine is worse than usual, so I decided to do something good to offset all the bad karma.