Tatto For You

What we have below is two page layout views of the first few chapters of Book 3 (those who know MS Word will know what this is, which is probably most of you). The first is Draft 1, the second Draft 2 with all the changes tracked in red. ADDENDUM as of 1/7/9 ~ WELL... the above is what you would have seen, but a contractual issue back o' house has me now removing said images - though they were diagrammatic and illegible - from the public space. For those who saw them and were edified by them, glad to be of encouragement. For those who did not, well, wow, they were the most spectacular things you will ever behold in your span of years upon this planet... there was certainly a lot of red on them anyway. You will be able to see them again once Book 3 is out... in a little while... Apologies to my publishers for my careless enthusiasm to share. Sorry folks, more normal transmissions will resume in their usual erratic manner. Happy New Financial Year, btw.

Almost two weeks on (!) I surface from the Sea of Words - the Pontus Logia - to say what a swell time I had at Conjecture 2009 ; met many amazing folk - organisers, readers, writers and editors alike - though no one from here (thank you for asking Portals ). Apologies to you Klesita for not letting you know earlier, would have been great to meet you - I could have answered you questions that are still rattling about my noggin, directly... How about I do so now anyway. The one most on mind is... One of the things that intrigues me more is how Clementine, been so far away from everywhere and more over been so far inland, became a centre of power. Most centres of power become that because their position is strategic in one way or another. What is strategic about this place? I must admit when I look at the placement of Clementine/ Benevente on the map I do scratch my head a little and wonder how it got to be so powerful. Its strategic significance is not nearly as relevant in the curr...

I am surfacing from my Pit of Editing [TM] ( cess pit, maybe...?) to let those of you in the Adelaide vicinity know that I will be doing a reading and what they call an 'author appearance' on Saturday 6 th June ( this Saturday!) at this year's Conjecture Spec Fic convention . Details as follows: Saturday 2:30 - 3:30 1st floor Holiday Inn, Hindley Street, Adelaide ...then at 5:30 at same venue I will be helping to launch Richard Harland's most excellent new truly steampunk offering, Worldshaker , a novel definitely worth your time to read (I liked it so much they put what I thought of it on the cover). Along with this book I cannot recommend highly enough Richard's WritingTips website. You can even download a . pdf of the entire document for free FREE FREE from the site . Richard is an absolute legend for producing it, so go see, please! It is an veritable mine on the whole process of this thing called writing , from getting going to getting published -...

I thought it would be simplest to show you the very beginning of Lamplighter . I will make some comment on each version but will let them speak for themselves - my hope is that when you click on an image it will show it at a better, more readable size. Please, ask any questions you like. As you can see my initial beginning was markedly different from what we now have in the book. My first thought was to start the very next day from where Foundling left off. I am glad that I did not. The where to begin a story is one of the big challenges in writing. Apart from this, other problems clear to me (now, at least) are a/ that Grindrod is unrealistically harsh & b/ the excessive use of capitals for his voice. Next is the proper beginning to the story; it is bloated and clumsy - but that is the nature of my first drafts for you... The comments on it are made by the fair hand of my publisher, Dyan Blacklock. The change from first to second draft is hard work but seeing the better, tighter ...

Just put up another poll for your pondering (just scroll down a bit) ... more substantial posting coming soon.

Just in case you thought I had shuffled off somewhere, I am still about, honest, being very preoccupied about editing (actually a major rewrite - you should see all the green pen scribbled over each page, the inserted pages with even more green scribblings) and slack about blogging. I heard once that you need to post at least once a week to be considered a real blog, so I don't know where that leaves us... Just thought I would acknowledge that "clede" (a corruption of Mr Hranac's 'cledu' verificon word) meaning a country dance, and most likely "verger" (coined by Alyosha's daughter) meaning a builder of fortifications, might well have a place in the Half-Continent. 'Tis a bit perplexing about how such things work though; can I even have them to use? They are other people's stuff after all. I could sit here and just plunder you all and never have to come up with my own stuff - though where is the fun in that...! endless invention is ent...

monday comes bearing a "nosy personal question, Mr Cornish: I was just re-read Foundling again and am suddenly wondering if you have some sort of deep-seated, sweat-inducing terror of, when traveling, accidentally getting on the wrong bus/train/airplane. [I'm talking of course about Rossamund's incident with the Rupunzil and the Hogshead.] because i am a paranoid traveller myself, and that situation certainly struck a chord with me...did you have some sort of bad experience, or is it just the product of an over-anxious imagination?" I think it is the latter, though now that I ponder it, I certainly have an at times morbid concern for missing my stop - may be that is it? Ben Bryddia was wondering... "Since it's not socially acceptable to be abroad without a hat of some sort in the Empire, does Europe's refusal to wear one say anything about her personality?" I reckon it does, yes... especially in light of her rather ironic observations of Rossamun...