I've a writing worklist right now.
Finishing The Early Fox is top of the list, of course. I didn't find that Civil War graveyard (there are a lot of "Billy the Kid kilt heah" locations but nothing near enough to US-54) but I did find an old Mission style (WPA project, actually) school in a gold boom ghost town. That will do for my "Ecstasy of Gold" scene.
Still not ready for the foray into Navajo lands.
Contacted the cover artists I've worked with before but they were uninterested in doing a cover clean-up. They have (most of these guys have) a listed service of cover doctor, but what they mean is, they'll design one for you to replace whatever it is you are using.
So I guess I'm doing my own cover art again. After my last couple of go-arounds, I'm tired of struggling to communicate. And first task on that list is doing my own vectors over the art my logo designer did. And probably changing a few things and trying out a few things, too.
As part of the rebranding, revisions to The Fox Knows Many Things. Including AI -- but not what you'd think! ProWritingAid has an AI development editor thing that is, of course, extra fees but they have a free trial. That's not in any way using AI to revise.
It is, perhaps, one of the best ways of using AI; a thousand-monkey version of crowdsourcing (on stolen data). Point the AI monkey at the manuscript and see if enough of it fell within the kinds of things readers are used to seeing (aka looks like other books) that the AI can figure out what it is looking at.
Always, as with any editing tool or feedback, take it as a suggestion and apply your own instincts and intelligence to those suggestions. But I'd be interested in seeing what it comes up with.
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I've been thinking about archaeological issues to hang the next book on.
That is my conceit for the series; each book features a place and culture, a bit of history connected to said place and culture, and explores some aspect of modern archaeology.
The current book, I backed off early with the idea of doing "bad experiences on digs." The sexism on the dig in this book is a plot point, but it isn't defining the dig or Penny's experience (which is largely positive...next book, maybe, I can get her the Job from Hell.)
So The Early Fox is more-or-less NAGPRA and associated issues. I was barely able to touch on indigenous archaeology/community archaeology, the mound builder myth, and so on but at that, it did better than the Paris book in having something to do with archaeology.
Over previous books, I've already delved into archaeological looting, nationalist revisionism and irredentism. And pseudo-archaeology, but there are too many easy pickings there. I could easily fill a series with just running around after the Kensington Runestone or Bosnian pyramids. The fake artifact trade is interesting but I've got a book saved for that. And repatriation issues show up again with the boat episode (assuming I get around to writing either of those).
And somehow that thinking led to something that was an actual excuse other than "this is the random small town I ended up in next" for Penny's involvement. Brought in to help the artifacts look more authentic (for extremely suspect values of "authentic") in some kind of weird high-tech VR sort of thing. Less gaming company (why would they need a fancy tech center?) more experimental direct-mind-connection stuff.
Not really directions I wanted to take the series, but then having gunfights with ISIL over some Buddhist statuary isn't where I want to go, either.
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