(11:05:36 PM) Mutt: Hehe. I like it when people imagine Weft is the Fox's terrier, but he isn't.
(11:05:59 PM) Anke: he played at it.
(11:06:31 PM) Mutt: Yep, he plays at it. He and various diplomat brothers do a very good double act.
(11:14:12 PM) Mutt: You know, a sort of 'good cop, bad cop' routine.
"My honoured friend, I assure you, I have no wish at all to see this negotiation become unpleasant."
"Can I take out his eyes, Tortile? I can hit 'em with a throwing blade from here."
"Weft! [looks shocked] Don't be so impolite to this nice member of the criminal classes! Sir, please ignore my overzealous brother..." etc.
(11:15:36 PM) Mutt: Tortile is more articulate and better-written than that, but you know what I mean.
(11:16:43 PM) Mutt: Or even, rarely...
"Well, honoured sir, much as it pains me to say this, the fact is that only I can control my stab-happy friend here--"
"[grr! looks crazy!]"
"--and if you don't stop telling me half-truths and lies, I'm going to walk away, and he may not follow me."

You know what --- I've been reading too much Mr Crane. That's why Suitov's nervous about killer robots and dragons, and Weft's being more overtly sadistic. :D

I'm not altogether pleased with the sequence alluded to, when Weft was playing the dumb heavy and letting the Fox do the talking. I think it was reasonably in-character, but it wasn't the best writing I'm capable of; it was done when I was writer's-blocked.

There are big bits of ongoing stories that I can barely force myself to reread because I'm convinced my writing is so awful, waah waah. I'd like to edit Kit-Fox severely if we ever finish it. There was a gap of - a year? something? even more? - in the middle of the story before Anke joined and rescued it. And recently I've been treading water a little; I could probably easily tighten up my sections.

(There's also a crazy bandit called Jeeck who seems to belong to me, and I'm not sure yet what, if anything, I'm going to do with him. In fact I've left in quite a few potential plot points/loose ends with the bandits - deliberately so, but the ones we don't use could be got rid of in an edit.)

Really going to send those books off soon. I'll be contacting people for addresses and to ask if they want signatures/dedications. You could email me with that info to speed the process up, but please don't use my @hellhound.net address for the next day or so - it may not get through/may get deleted. Instead use the name of the character I said earlier on was nervous @gmail.com.