A Dragon at Llanelli

I still have a copy waiting to drop off in our own little library (a former red phone box about a mile down the road); I need to figure out what to write in it first. ^_^

hS

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The number is in pixels. The height is automatically calculated from the width; no need to specify it. You can probably go as high as 800 and it'll still be comfortable on a PC.

~Neshomeh

My Welsh knowledge is mostly limited to placenames, so everything in there was based on internet research. I tried to treat it like I do Quenya in my PPC stories - exclamations and terms of address can go by untranslated (you don't need much to tell you that cariad is an endearment), but anything else needs some kind of translation in the narrative.

In the few pages I have of the sequel, there's actually a third type of Welsh-use: people deliberately using it to talk past Arthur (who sometimes deserves it). I need to work on exactly how translated that will be; it's all very rough right now.

hS

Is it weird that I'm more nervous about you reading it, knowing that it's in-genre for you, than about other people who are just trying it out? Maybe you'll spot all the massive problems that nobody else has picked up on... [Frets]

hS

It is a long way from the book I would have expected to publish, but hopefully it's good despite that. :)

hS

Page 24, paragraph 1:

... to be guarded by a pair of severely-dressed women whose role appeared to be to take notes on absolutely everything.

That sure sounds like a pair of agents compiling a charge list to me! No hints as to who they might be, though.

I'm not quite done with the book yet, but nearly! Have been enjoying so far. I have my chief suspect, I'm certain I know what the daughter and the maid are about, and I think I know what's missing and where the poison was. Possibly the chalice from the palace, but definitely not the flagon with the dragon. ^_^

~Neshomeh

That was one hell of a read, if I may say so myself. I love how overwhelmingly Welsh it is—I'd been learning the language for several years, so you had me roped in from the start. :) I loaned the copy to my dad now and he's enjoying it!

As for my guess for the cameo... page 39?

"There was a soft click, and a sudden murmur of voices, shockingly loud in the quiet bower. Cloth rustled somewhere in the room, and then there came a startled gasp and the sound of a door slamming shut."

(Sounds to me like Jay's camera went off!)

I doubt I'll be able to participate, sadly, but this just a great idea.

-Ls

The advice you offered re. punctuation etc definitely helped the book look better than it would have otherwise. Beyond that, given that I have [checks] five confirmed sales so far, I think anything else would have been a bit overwrought anyway. :)

(I've actually bought more copies than that myself at this point. ^_^ I hope to get a few more by telling Facebook, but I can't do that until I've surprised my mother. Also this is "processed" orders, which means [expressive shrug].)

~

Speaking of your bookshelf, I've also updated the Restricted Section list to include both A Dragon at Llanelli, and the contribution Zingenmir made to Living Legacies back in 2014. That puts Published PPCer Works at 26, which is 2/3 of a Shakespeare.

Question: do we want the Restricted Section list to be transferred to the Wiki? It's an in-universe list of books held in a specific room of the Canon Library, so it shouldn't run into the No Real People restriction.

hS

My bookshelves are alphabetised, so you'll slot in right in front of Rick Riordan. ^_~

I may have spent a while last night inventing an author signature that's distinct from my legal signature. I may also have let this thing go to my head a bit.

hS

I'm very pleased with it, and it is quite a pretty book:

hS

I actually supplied the eBook to Amazon in - if you can believe it - .docx format. The other option was to download and use their Kindle Create app, which seemed like a lot more work given that I'd already cleaned up the .docx for the paperback. When I tried to download a copy of the eBook for testing, it claimed to be in HTML format and landed me with a .zip of 49 files, mostly HTML, some images, and a handful things like .json or .ncx. That did not load onto a Kindle, if you're wondering.

In theory, I can transfer the eBook file manually from the physical Kindle (not the browser version) to a computer, but that will wind up with it in whatever format Amazon use for Kindle eBooks - AZW or KFX apparently. I'm not sure if that will even work, and I think it's what you were trying to avoid anyway. ^_^

I'll email you to discuss details; if I manage to space it, ping my Board email in a few days and I'll go "oh bother, sorry, I got distracted!".

hS

We have a few of those around (they've been repurposing the old red phone boxes in the villages near us); maybe I should get a bunch of author copies and just spam the local area. >:-D

hS

As I get older, I seem to be turning more and more into a Hobbit, and I feel like hobbits would really enjoy a cozy mystery. (Probably not with murder, they're funny like that.)

Good luck with the move!

hS