#thewateroutlaws

Lu Da's staff weights "60 jin". A Jin is a little more than a US pound, so it's about 54.5 pounds. Which seems heavy as fuck for a staff.

A modern Chinese Gun (Staff) is six feet long and an unspecified on Wikipedia thickness. At an inch thick, a six foot oak staff would be like, 2 pounds. Even an inch thick staff of pure lead (the most common "really heavy, yet fashionable" thing I can think of,) would only be 23 pounds.

Now, given this is wuxia, so fantasy, and I don't know what kinds of metals were available during the Song dynasty, it could be something fantastic rather than real, but were it real, it might be an inch and a half lead core with a quarter inch of iron around that for support.

That is fucking big.

#TheWaterOutlaws #SLHuang #Wuxia #Math

But! What’s selling right now is the first printing still — it’s not sold through YET, it's just going fast — so if YOU want to be a book collecting dork and get a hardcover with the “1” in it, you still can!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Celebrate with mooncakes and stabby lesbians!! 🥮⚔📕

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books #MidAutumn #MidAutumnFestival

You’ll see discussions of this among book collectors, where earlier printings can be more valuable...

Or, yanno, among people like me who are just TOTAL DORKS

In fact this is the first time one of my books has had a second printing (YAY!), so I might actually go out and buy it so I can have a copy without the “1” there 🤣🤣🤣

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

Have you ever looked at a copyright page and seen this line?

This is the “number line” or “printer’s key” and it tells you which printing a book’s on! The lowest existing number is the current print run.

(I think 0 means 10 here, making 1 the lowest number = 1st print run)

For the second printing... drum roll... the “1” will be DELETED!!!

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

How did I celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival?

~✨ By finding out THE WATER OUTLAWS is getting a second printing! ✨~

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

Hey anyone want some PUBLISHING TRIVIA about print runs?

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

end of thread. here is the book btw!

my 150,000-word novel with one of the 5 third-person POVs written pronoun-less!

THE WATER OUTLAWS:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

plus yanno lots of swordfights 😆⚔️

#TheWaterOutlaws #fantasy #sff #SpeculativeFiction #book #books #bookstodon #EpicFantasy #language #MartialArts #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #nonbinary @bookstodon

The craft was actually easier than I expected, but I did put a lot of thought and effort in, and a lot of time double-checking the updated drafts...

...so I hope at least a small number of people notice and get joy out of it eventually 🤣

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #writing

well then, what do, how write?

I experimented a lot & no pronouns felt best for the character!

(they're in "fantasy Chinese", which doesn't gender pronouns just as real Chinese doesn't...which doesn't stop misogyny btw. Anglophones sometimes seem to assume that'd correlate but ungendering pronouns doesn't magically heal sexism/transphobia, sadly 😭)

#TheWaterOutlaws #Chinese #pronouns #language

Why did I do it? Well when a book is "translation convention" from a language that doesn't gender pronouns --

and the group is genderdiverse-norm in the midst of a regressive society --

but there's no misgendering via pronoun or in-POV way to introduce neopronouns --

#TheWaterOutlaws
#language
#linguistics #fantasy #pronouns #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

(I think most people are assuming female, even though I tried to put in subtle "Wu Yong is not a woman" moments CLEARLY THEY WERE TOO SUBTLE. That's on me lol)

#TheWaterOutlaws

me to my sister: NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT MY WU YONG PRONOUN CLEVERNESS

her: that just means you did it well, it's so smooth nobody notices

me: well I want them to notice a LITTLE 😂

#TheWaterOutlaws

I've started talking about it in like every interview now because I want more people to see it ah hahaha, and the reaction tends to be, "omg I didn't see it BUT NOW I DO"

I guess it's not as awkward to read English without pronouns as we tend to assume? 😉

#TheWaterOutlaws

smol thread!

Do you ever do something as an author that's SO VERY CLEVER AND CHALLENGING and then

and then

nobody notices?

Y'all I wrote 1 of 5 POVs in a 3rd person book entirely without personal pronouns and I don't think anyone's mentioned it at all 🤣🤣🤣

#TheWaterOutlaws