Riding down Golden Lane for #WIPpet Wednesday

Mea culpa! It’s been a while since I participated in a Round of Words or WIPpet Wednesday! The thing is, I just haven’t had the time to make the rounds of other bloggers, and if I can’t do that, I feel bad about posting.

So why have I been so busy? Well, I’m still not done with the translation, but it’s close now! I’ve also been doing a lot of experimenting with marketing, to try to lift my books out of obscurity. It’s working, kind of, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Finally, I’ve been prepping a novel idea for Nanowrimo, and I plan to dive in with lots of extra energy once the translation is finished — only a matter of days! In the meantime, I’ve managed to get a few pages done a day so I don’t fall too far behind. You can find me on the Nanowrimo site here. On Nano, I’m Specficrider if you want to be buddies!

On to WIPpet Wednesday. Weeks ago in Facets of Glass, we left Gaetano arriving in Prague and trying to find his way around. By now, he has found the Goldmakers’ Street (Golden Lane in real life). My math today for 11/4 is 1+1+4 = 6 paragraphs:

He found the Friedrich glass shop between two “Alchymista,” one selling gold and one selling potions. He wondered which of the two did better business. While bigger than most of the other houses on the street, the glassmaker’s establishment was much more modest than the Fenice Glassworks where Chiara Dragoni had once been a maestra glassmaker of Murano. Gaetano asked himself what made her flee from such wealth to such simple circumstances.
He dismounted, tied the reins of his mare to a post, and pushed open the door. A tinkling bell alerted someone in the back rooms of the shop of his arrival, and an older man with thinning hair hurried in in, wiping his hands on his apron. He said something in Czech or German, and Gaetano shook his head. “Do you speak Italian?” he asked in that language.
“Only a little bit,” the man said in strongly accented Italian. “I will get someone to help you.”
Gaetano nodded his thanks. “Grazie.”
The old man disappeared through the doorway. Soon the curtain twitched again, and a young woman appeared, smiling pleasantly — at least until she saw him.
Chiara Dragoni — lost in the lagoon of Venice, and found again in a small glass shop in Prague.

Golden Lane (Goldmakers’ Street) in Prague

WIPpet Wednesday is the brain child of K. L. Schwengel. If you’d like to participate, post an excerpt from your WIP on your blog, something that relates to the date in some way. Then add your link here — where you can also read the other excerpts.

Gaetano goes to Prague for #WIPpet Wednesday

I skipped last week again and opted for a quarterly wrap-up instead. The thing is, I really have to concentrate on getting this translation finished, and blogging is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. But I will continue posting excerpts at least every other week. Not only do I want to keep in touch with other WIPpeteers, I also like the way it keeps me focused on this project.

So for today I’m giving you three paragraphs from Facets of Glass for the 3 in the day of the month. This is the beginning of a new chapter, and finds Gaetano on his way north to commission a glass coffin — and find Chiara:

Before setting out on his journey to Prague, Gaetano had been assured that his command of Italian and French would be sufficient during his travels. Unfortunately, his French was much worse than he had thought — at least when he tried to understand what passed for French among innkeepers on the road — and after leaving the borders of the Venetian Empire, speakers of Italian were much less common than he would have expected. The rest of his journey took him through the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, where German was the predominant language, and speakers of Italian rare.

At least his French began to improve with practice, and the farther north he traveled, the better was his command of the lingua franca.

He had been hoping that communication would become easier when he reached the imperial city of Prague, but here too men and women on the street spoke only some guttural language Gaetano couldn’t understand, either German or Czech. He couldn’t tell the difference and he didn’t care. All he wanted was to find someone who spoke a civilized tongue, and who could point him in the direction of Friedrich Glassworks.

A trip to Prague, almost 10 years ago now.

WIPpet Wednesday is the brain child of K. L. Schwengel. If you’d like to participate, post an excerpt from your WIP on your blog, something that relates to the date in some way. Then add your link here — where you can also read the other excerpts.

25 of the most majestic libraries in the world

I had to share this, especially once I saw that the city where I live is represented:

I’ve been to five of the lovely sites listed, which isn’t bad at 20%. 🙂 View the rest of the amazing book paradises here:

http://www.boredpanda.com/extraordinary-libraries/

These are my favorites, even if they aren’t Stuttgart:

I’ve been to both Prague and Den Haag but not the libraries. Hopefully someday I will be able to remedy that situation. 🙂