Beta Reader Appreciation Day

[annathepiper]

I see on my Friends list a mention that apparently today has been declared Beta Reader Appreciation Day. (Thanks for passing that on, pinkdormouse!) Because I have gotten such invaluable help from my own beta readers, I could not pass up an opportunity to throw out some public accolades!

mamishka and kathrynt, you babes are fabulous for being sounding boards for ideas already rolling around in my head and giving me brilliant suggestions for how to rearrange them into an order that makes infinitely more sense. Meems, your ability to help me step back and take a second look at something I've written is invaluable. And Kathryn? You rock at helping me figure out exactly how to write me a corrupt, Machiavellian priest.

gerimaple, you rule for helping me find that one continuity error in Chapter 12 of Faerie Blood, as well as helping me realize that of COURSE Millicent Merriweather is the kind of plucky old lady who'd belt back a good 12-year-old Glenlivet. ;) kriski, you were fabulous for helping me work the first few chapters of that book into a more logical order, as well as unflinchingly pointing out Mary-Sue-y things I really needed to excise out of my heroine.

wrog and framlingem, once I get around to writing Child of Ocean, Child of Stars in earnest, oh, your times will come. I haven't forgotten all your wonderful science-geeky input back when I started trying to work out what Nereus is like in my head, and I am dead certain I will need to be calling upon you again once that book starts taking shape.

For every single one of you who helped me out by proofreading Faerie Blood and giving me input both great and small, a thousand thanks. It wouldn't be sitting at Luna getting looked at right now without your help. To every single one of you who'll be stepping up to the plate when I'm ready to hit you with the full-bore, double-barrel completed first draft of Lament, consider yourselves thanked in advance, too!

Thank you. Thank you all!

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Aw. *blush*

(You know what's really, really, really cool? I'm doing a meteorology segment, so we'll be able to figure out where and what kinds of clouds you'll get on your ocean world, provided you can tell me temperatures. Funky, no?)

[annathepiper]

That will be most excellent, since the book will be set pretty much entirely on Nereus, and every single little detail I can get into place will help!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if Nereus had an axial tilt. *ponders*

It's going to be so much FUN.

(For my fee, though, I will require a signed first edition. 'Kay?)

[annathepiper]

It's a DEAL!

(Here is the original thread about the Nereus worldbuilding. Friends-locked. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to eventually starting on that story, but Julian, Kestar, and Faanshi are demanding I finish Lament of the Dove first!)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

AWESOME. I looked in your memories to see if it was there, but I couldn't see it.

[annathepiper]

I've got a lot of my Writing-related posts on Memories, but I think I actually have too many of them there. So they're really hard to sift through. I should winnow them down to only the most really interesting ones, now that I have the Writing tag to mark them all.

(For that matter, I've actually just been thinking of spinning off a separate Writing journal, but the main reason I'm not doing that is because I think it'd actually drive me a little spazzy to have to keep track of two journals.)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I'm rereading there, and I said something that I'm not so sure about any more, about hurricanes. On your ocean world, you'd probably not get many hurricanes of great strength; someone said that land tends to kill them, which is true, but land is also critical for creating the temperature variatons which make low pressure systems which amp up the hurricanes in the first place. The two most hurricane-y places in the world (the Gulf Coast and South Asia) both feature land which encircles part of the ocean.

I should probably have posted that over there.

[annathepiper]

I suppose it might depend upon where the land masses are situated--and upon the shape of the land masses in question? I'm thinking maybe two land masses of any size. There's one at the very least, which is where the Terrans would be colonizing in the first place. :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

The shape of the land mass is the most important thing - it allows a patch of water to heat up more, which causes evaporation, which requires energy, so heat gets sucked out of surrounding air masses (seriously - the best way to cool down a planet is to start the oceans evaporating. Counterintuitive? Absolutely.), changing the air pressure, creating winds. :)

Am doing this in Geography 2102 right now. :P

[annathepiper]

I am SO picking your brains some more once I start going over my notes for this story again. ;) This is going to require as much if not more worldbuilding than The Dove, the Rook, and the Hawk--I mean, I'm having to invent an entire world there, too, but in that set of stories, the physical nature of the planet is not a factor that's important to the story, whereas with this book, it WILL be. It will affect everything that's in the plot!

I'm going to have SO! MANY! REAMS! OF! NOTES!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I could recommend some really good introductory-level textbooks. They're... well, college textbooks, so $$$ though. But they're a good read.

[annathepiper]

Hopefully by the time I get around to writing COCS, I'll have enough extra bucks to actually buy things purely for research purposes. :) Recommendations are therefore welcome!