On the bright side, I started skipping around The Worth of a Shell and found myself reading it to the end. Aside from some minor copy-edits, I don't think I'll end up changing anything. I still believe this book. I can't wait to make it available.

      "I think we're safe," I said quietly.
      "Good!"
      "For now," I finished.
      We stood in silence, enveloped in the cool hand of the forest. Dlane gulped at the air, sounding alarmingly like she trying not to sob.
      "Ke anadi?"
      "Will it ever end?" she asked, the intonation that might have made it a question failing. "You've killed fourteen beasts and saved me from two searchers. How much longer can we be so lucky?"
      "This isn't luck, ke anadi," I said, pulling her into my arms and resuming our course down the stream. She did not resist.
      "And now without food or clothing or even your spear! How will we survive?"
      "As Jokka always have. Through skill and intelligence, and perhaps the will of the Trinity."
      "The Trinity," she said bitterly. "What Trinity? What gods?"
      "Hush, ke anadi, you're talking nonsense," I said. She could take many things from me, my anadi, but my faith in the Brightness, World and Void… that she would not have.
      Perhaps she sensed my rejection… whatever the case she rested against my chest without speaking. Her body was damp, and the soft hairs cloaking her feet had curled from the run. I found a rhythm and strode down the ravine, trying not to disturb the water.
      "Intelligence," Dlane murmured. "Always intelligence. If it is intelligence through which we survive, why do we destroy it in a third of our population?"
      I opened my mouth, then frowned. "We do not destroy intelligence, ke anadi."
      "Yes we do," Dlane said. "Breeding the anadi. It kills their minds."
      Exasperated, I asked, "And the alternative? Shall we get children on animals?"
      "In the end, that is exactly what we do," Dlane said. "And I would end up as intelligent and malleable as a ñedsu. Point me in a direction and give me a simple command, and wailing and moaning I follow."
      The image so revolted me I stumbled.
      "You see?"
      "What can I say?" I said. "What would you have us do? If we did not breed, we would grow old. There would be no laughter of the young to sustain us. The last of us would finally die and there would be no Jokka. The wind would chase clean the fields we tended, the towns we built, scour them from the earth, and it would be as if we never lived. What would the world be then?"
      "I don't know," Dlane said. "Would it matter? We would not be there to see it."
      "A world without Jokka!" I didn't stop because the motions had become mechanical, beyond my control. I walked because stopping, I would fall. "I cannot fathom it! Dlane… we are our race."
      "Why does it matter so much to you?" she asked, golden eyes rising to mine. I did not spare a glance for her; to do so would be to drown in the gold, to acknowledge her utter earnestness. To acknowledge that she could hold the death of our race in her mind with enough detachment to measure whether it was good or bad. "You will die, Thenet… and after that, you will know no more, or at least have no more concern with the Jokka."
      "How do you know?" I asked. "My death will not make me any less a Jokkad."
      "You'll be dead, Thenet. The only Jokku thing about you then will be your corpse, and even that will rot away and return to the earth," Dlane said.
      I almost dropped her.
      "When I die," I said, staring down at her, "I will be embraced by the World. It will help me to my feet and anoint me with the paint and long-cloth of the Earth and Wind. It will give me eyes of the Sky, so that I may hold the Brightness without blinking, and scales of stars that I may be held by the Void without shivering. With a spear I will hunt the unmaking spirits with all my comrades at my side, and make safe the World for the Jokka still living."
      Dlane said, "For all eternity."
      "For all eternity," I agreed.
      "How wearisome," Dlane said.

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Dlane at Dusk

Today I printed out the manuscript for Shell to edit, something I'm hoping won't take very long (how many times have I edited this book by now?). While I'm not planning on releasing this one until autumn, at the rate I'm working I realize I have to start on it now. Some thoughts, then:

• I worked out the price; looks like I can do a color cover, B&W interior on cream paper for about $7-8, the same you'd pay for a normal paperback. I am pleased!

• The cover is going to have to be "Dlane at Dusk" (above)... that's the iconic picture of Dlane, whether or not the book is told by someone else. I think, to make it work, I might do an Art Nouveau style frame for the title/author/back cover blurb.

• I'm not sure whether to use some of the old B&W imagery I've already done as interior illustrations or do new pencil pieces... I know I want to add some calligraphy and maps and other inserts, I'm just not sure about the drawings. If I do new ones, I have to start now, given how slow I'm working.

• I'm not sure yet whether I want to serialize this online or just have the first three chapters or so available. If I serialize every novel I've written (even discounting the ones I think are no longer viable), we'll be here years before we get to anything new.

• I do, however, want to drum up donations for this one so I have an "advance" to cover the time I'm going to spend working on putting together the interior. Not sure how I'm going to do that if I don't serialize it.

Anyway, just the things I'm mulling over now while I still have plenty of time to decide. But I keep realizing that the trade-off for giving away all the control for these things to other people is... that I'm giving it away. Being able to choose whether to include illustrations and which, whether I want alien calligraphy in the book or not, whether to include maps, glossaries... to be able to give you the whole story, not just the writing part... really, I'm happier doing it this way and I think the product is better for it too. Hopefully those of you who bought the hard copy of The Aphorisms agree. :)


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