video | un: warden (this post is about romance novels)

[megatheorem]

[Good day, Trench, and welcome to... whatever this is going to be. Here is one Palamedes, sitting at his desk in what may be broadly recognizable as his office in the Sanctuary, whether or not one has been in it before (it has, these days, a distressing worm-on-a-string curtain in place of a door). Palamedes shuffles through some papers, tsks, and gets up to simply walk off screen, although this is not an accidental post, for he does call back:]

Damn my filing system! Hold on, don't look away.

[So now: the sounds of shuffling, and also, footsteps on a ladder? Then the eventual soft thump as he hops back down, and finally his several layered cardigans masquerading as a torso coming back into view, before he sits back down in the chair with a hearty squeak of rusty metal.

He has even more papers now. A small pile of notebooks, actually, which he folds his hands atop before properly regarding the camera.]

So! I wrote a book. Are any of you in the publishing business? Here, locally, or otherwise? My wheelhouse is firmly the academic, and literature— while a passion project— is a field I know far less about. As such: publishing. Any tips welcome.

I am also in the market for some cover art, I think. My artistic talents leave a lot to be desired, but I've produced some helpful mock-ups, somewhere around here...

[Just kidding they're right here ready and waiting, and so he holds them up side by side:



...So, yes. His handwriting is, of course, perfectly legible.]

Like I said: I'm an academic, not an artist. I'll pay you in whatever you like, blood or stone or- [and he leans briefly off camera again, to mutter, then he's back] -or scones! Good ones, for people into that kind of thing.

[Yahoo... Draw him a horny squidmance cover page... This is ordinary.]

Obviously, children need not apply.

Oh, and the working title is Ceasefire of the Senses: A Treatise on the Juxtaposition of Passion and Reason, unless you happen to be my cruelest critic and dearest spouse, love of my life, in which case "that title is ridiculous" and it's actually called "that story in your fifty notebooks." Regardless.

[He pats the pile of notebooks, like, his title is good actually? This might be a thinly veiled opinion poll about the title.]

And as it's the season, again, if anyone needs a professional hand with their lockjoint, come down to the Lumenarium- or Sanctuary- and ask for Palamedes. I'll take care of it with a silk touch; you get to keep the stones. Drawings of squids entirely voluntary for that one.

Comments

[dohaeris]

[sansa has heard vaguely about smutty books disguised as cautionary tales through randa royce and correctly passed over a number of early english novels for this reason; of course this is not the sort of thing she associates with palamedes and unthinkingly assumes the subject matter in question probably has something to do with necromancy.

a typewriter, though...(sounds like it operates on the same principle as a dishwasher...)]

Is that a machine? I imagine Viktor would do a better job at finding one than I could, but I can ask Jinx if I see her.

[she is taking jinx's departure from the rookery a little bit personally! the blood effects for palebloods this month have made it a little hard for her to be understanding.

what do you say to someone that has written a probably didactic novel on probably necromancy?]

I'm sure your book will be very interesting.

[attached are the names and email addresses of a few local bookbinders.]

[megatheorem]

It is, it's— [he wiggles a hand, like, he can't just say typing machine, that's nothing,] A boxy keyboard that you feed paper into for faster, typeset scribing. If you happen upon anything with a pressable alphabet, let me know.

[He pauses to scroll through the list of bookbinders, committing them all to memory in short order, and he thinks, hm... Sansa would probably not enjoy his squid romance novel.

Like it seems in a different wheelhouse entirely. From hers. Squidmance. Ahem.]

Thank you, for these. I think the book is interesting, but apparently that's an opinion only I hold. So! We'll see.

[dohaeris]

[sansa secretly(?) loves romance, albeit in a largely pg-13 capacity. randa royce did leave her with the impression that erotica was not at all tasteful. regardless healthy boundaries with the adult men in her life are important for her to have right now.

fortunately she thinks this book is concerned with teaching people ethical necromancy or something, which she thinks might not be so compatible with her inherited magic. she probably won't read it...unless that would be rude...]

Perhaps people might be more interested if you said it was a novel, instead of a treatise. I imagine the people here are very used to long treatises by Arcane Scholars about magic or Pthumerians that don't have any stories in them.

[megatheorem]

Well, I did mention it was a story.

[While ribbing Viktor about ribbing him, but never mind that specific detail. People listened to this whole post, they should understand.]

It doesn't bother me, in any case; I did this for myself.