Thursday, November 4, 2021

The Clacks

In one of Terry Pratchett's books, there was a tradition among the operators of the Discworld's version of the telegraph; they would add someone's name to the list of messages to be transmitted, with a tag saying "please repeat." So as long as one clack station still existed and was sending messages, that person would not be forgotten.

The Kyoto book is published (eBook only; the saga of the print cover is still ongoing). Nobody has bought it yet. That means, with the exception of one beta reader, everything that happened inside the book, all the people, all the places, all the events, only exist in one place; inside my head. If I were to drop dead, nobody would ever know of them.

Having people read it is our version of the clacks. Those people and places exist only as long as others remember them.

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