For the purposes of ordering book covers at the same time for all three parts of Lodestar, I’m continuing with this part of the saga. Viewpoint characters will be Ahni and Srese and the implant by way of both Srese’s and Kes’s life-suits.

(For those following Kestrel–you know who you are–don’t worry.)

Some of the materials I’m rewriting have been ‘on the back-burner’ and ‘under the bed’ for more than ten years and have dated somewhat. This is a definite risk where science fiction is concerned.

Lol ‘under the bed’ is where we writers kept our manuscripts in the pre-computer days, when everything had to be either hand-written or typed or both. We kept our first drafts in grocery boxes under the bed between edits, and we stored our non-viable manuscripts under there for when we’d need to mine them—pick and shovel style—for anything useful.

‘On the back-burner’ was a rotation strategy when we happened to be writing two or three novels at the same time. This was never recommended, but a rule often broken, from what I heard. We’d have a metaphoric stove going, with front and back burners. We’d keep one or two works stewing on the rear hot-plates while the one we were working on was being stirred on a front burner.

‘Burner’ will no doubt be remaindered when we all change over to 100 percent electricity.

My favorite metaphor for the writing process is the composting one. This refers to the idea that all the notes and scraps of paper living on a writer’s desk, her study floor, the front and back pages of printed books, her handbag, my pants pockets, gardening shirt and every other flat surface or container are collected.

The next step is to layer them, perhaps in proposed chapters, and arrange them in strategic places around my chair in the study nook for subsequent inputting. Overnight—because I’d always be called away to deal with this or that household crisis—things melded in a mysterious composting process such as happens on a forest floor, resulting ‘magically’ in meaning and order.

This time, however, I’ll be incorporating new ideas and updating old materials. I’ll be repairing bridges, writing stealthy byways, and designing new camel-ways. No magic other than sere insights.

I see I’ll have to adopt some kind of engineering metaphor to take care of all that road-building.

Hope to have you along.