Swordsman in review ... so nice!

Just a quick post here to link to the wonderful review of The Swordsman that's appeared at Rainbow reviews:

The Swordsman by Mel Keegan

...marvelous review, for which I'm most grateful.

Behind the scenes, I'm very, VERY busy with a new project which will be sprung on you soon. This one is exciting -- it's also extremely time consuming, which is why I'm blogging less lately. There's only 24 hours in day, and I have to sleep. Occasionally.

Back to work!

Ciao for now,
MK

Swordsman for visually impaired readers ... the proof arrives!

And then the doorbell rang, and it was the Aussie Post courier. With a box ... a bookbox, specifically. I've been waiting for this since before Easter (the four-day long weekend always busts up the mails), and at last, here it is ... the large print edition of The Swordsman, intended for visually impaired readers:

I have to say, this is absolutely beautiful. It's one of my mother's gifts for Mother's Day (in a few weeks), but I'll be delighted to work with this format and issue most or all of the Keegans -- stand by for a special page.

This is also my first experiment with the "publisher grade paper" which is now an option at Lulu.com ... and again, I'm impressed. It's a beautiful job. The paper is top-notch: whiter and smoother than the regular paper, and yet a lot more opaque, so there's no strike through. Lovely. The only downside is that the book is very slightly smaller than the fill-sized US trade size (6" x 9"). This is fine by me -- it's still larger in both axes than the old GMP editions. And, being large print, it's over 600pp ... which is impressive.

Nice!

I just went over to Lulu and gave the book the "nudge" to the public list, and you can now order this item:







The Swordsman, large print edition, 609pp. US$23.95.

In the coming weeks, I'll be getting together a good list for visually impaired glbt readers, and then we'll do a press release and a newsletter. If you're "blind and gay," or are supportive of someone who is ... and if you could spread the word ... this would be marvelous, and Keegan thanks you.

Cheers (again),
MK

The Swordsman ... on your iPhone!

At last, some great news! If you've been following this saga, you're probably aware that the last time (which was the first time) we tried to get onto Smashwords, we had upload problems. The great news? Fixed. Mark Coker recently announced a new Meatgrinder -- which is the Smashwords proprietorial document converter -- and it functions like clockwork. You upload a .doc file, and nominate the file formats you prefer. Wait a few minutes (long enough to go get a coffee or tea), and when you return to the computer ... done.



The really good news is that you can now get The Swordsman formatted specifically for any Mobi Reader, Kindle (Mobi again), your Phone (Stanza), your Palm Pilot, your Sony reader ... and of course if you can an iLiad or a netbook, you can still get the PDFs to fit from my bookstore, plus the Kindle download from the Kindle store, the paperback from Amazon, and the hardcover from Lulu.

I'd say I've got this one covered. Next?!

Well ... The Deceivers appeared in the Amazon engine a few days ago, and The Lords of Harbendane is at Mobi, plus Dangerous Moonlight was formatted specifically for Smashwords, at the time we had upload woes. So I think I'll start with these three, plus maybe two more, and then -- a newsletter.

Keegan is smiling this morning.

Cheers,
MK

Sunday morning ends and odds

Odds and ends today, and we'll open with a joke:

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue , where he'd been sitting on a park bench.
He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
The old man said, "Okay," and walked away.
The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.
The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"
The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."
The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, sir!"

...I can't credit the source, because this one has been doing the rounds via email, and I got it at third of fourth hand, but -- whoever came up with this ... GOOD ONE!

A couple of days ago I was talking about the movie Australia, and mentioned that Hugh Jackman would be a sight for sore eyes. (http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/mel-at-movies-australia.html) Thanks to the folks who sent me these (click on the thumbnails for a large image and, uh, enjoy):





My political post today is in the form of a reply to a very good comment on yesterday's post: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/prop-8-racial-vote-and-anger.html ...
I did indeed need to be much more specific about the religious rights I was talking about, and I've taken this opportunity to set out what I honestly do believe. Please take a few minutes to read this additional material ... and thanks to Adam for commenting. Much appreciated.

Anyone remember the name of Ron Cobb, back in the days when he was a political cartoonist, and before he went on to design major motion pictures? Remember this:

Nothing ever changes. That cartoon was drawn about 30 years ago. Gotta make you wonder.

Nice piece of news from Keegan Country: The Swordsman actually went "live" at Amazon.com last week, and we were thinking we would have to start some serious advertising to get sales ... turns out, sales have started all on their own. Nice. very.

The Lords of Harbendane progresses smoothly. Expect the ebook at PayLoads at the end of the month; expect the Lulu.com version (best for Aussies and Kiwis) about five days later; expect the CreateSpace version (best for the US and Canada) about five days after this; expect it to put in an appearance at Amazon about ten days later. (To your right as you read this is a wee small version of the character study of Rogan, the character around whom Harbendane revolves. It's a beautiful piece of work, by Jade as always on my book covers these days. Thank gods for digital artwork.)

What's next for Keegan, after Harbendane? A couple of short stories -- which is unusual for me. I rarely get ideas that lend themselves to short works. Then the haunted house novel I had promised for Christmas '08, and then swapped for Harbendane on account of a minor plotting snafu. Then ... HELLGATE. All of it. Right to the end, by the end of 2009. This time next year, you'll be able to get the whole series either as a sex of six paperbacks or three monster hardcovers. Make a nice Christmas pressie ... tell someone you love what to get you when the silly season comes around!

Ciao for now,
MK

Keegan's at Amazon at last!

A second post for today, because when news is this good, you have to share it:

Patience is rewarded It took 12 days out of a possible 15, but THE SWORDSMAN is now available on Amazon. If you don't have it because Amazon.com is the only online supplier you trust, now's the time to snag yourself an early Christmas present.



Read the first segment of the book right here:
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/swordsman_samp.pdf
(Be aware that THE SWORDSMAN is a gay novel and unsuitable for younger readers. Consider yourself duely warned and ... enjoy!)

Cover by Jade,
284pp, 6" x 9"
US$22.50
Buy THE SWORDSMAN right now from Amazon!

POD Publishing and Amazon ... patience is a virtue

One of the most challenging aspects of being a writers and/or publisher is the length of time it takes to do ANYTHING in this business.

The Internet has trained us to expect instant gratification, and we often overlook the fact that a web browser is just an interface between us and the real world. Sure, if you're talking to a computer (an online bank, the IRS, a store) you'll be able to work more or less in realtime. But where human beings are involved on the other side of the browser window ...

Take a number and wait, the chairs are over there. Take a diploma in thumb twiddling, perhaps, to pass the time. The Reader's Digests are five years old. Dust begins to thicken as you wait ... vultures gather in the rafters, ready to pick clean your bones after you've expired of sheer old age sitting there, waiting...

Like diligence, tact, politeness, punctuality, frugality, compassion, chastity and charity, patience is a virue. Hmmm. Ever noticed how a lot of these virtues tend to drive up your blood pressure, keep you awake nights, upset your digestion ...? You'll get away with a couple of them without resorting to the Pepto Bismol. It doesn't often hurt to be polite and punctual ... and compassion and charity are certainly their own rewards.

But, patience is not merely a virtue, it's the key quality without which writers and publishers will go bonkers, or quit, or both.

So, you think you'll beat the time lags by using POD, and you'll have your book in the stores in time for Christmas. Brilliant idea ... with a couple of surprises just around the corner, with their feet stuck out, strategically placed to catch yours.

Christmas 2008 is about nine weeks away, and THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE is virtually ready to go. We're still hoping you'll be able to get it from Amazon for the holiday feeding frenzy -- uh, that is, gift-buying season.

But this is the first time we've sweated through the process of publishing a work and releasing it on Amazon, and apparently we have a lot to learn, not least about patience!

The process works like this:

Your book is complete and your two PDFs are perfect -- one is the interior, one is the cover. Anyone who's been through the (must faster) Lulu.com process will already have a viable interior PDF, so you're a few steps ahead. The book we used as the pilot project headed for Amazon is, of course, THE SWORDSMAN.

You set up an account with CreateSpace:
https://www.createspace.com/

Now, it's free to set up the account, but unlike Lulu.com, CreateSpace works hand in glove with the Uncle Sam's trusty IRS. No matter where in the world you come from, you're going to have taxes withheld -- which is fair enough. However, there are quite a few hoops to jump through in the set-up phases. You have to track down, download, fill out and fax in the American IRS paperwork; a human at CreateSpace will go over it, check it out, and so forth. It takes a few days.

With your account set up, you can now tackle your project. Upload the interior, and they'll give you the stats around which your cover will be designed. So long as you have the original DTP file of the design, you can push and pull elements to your heart's content -- this is not a problem, just a faint annoyance, because you have to redesign your back cover around a barcode.

(If your book has been in print for some time, and you were never bothered about barcodes, because you were selling Lulu direct -- like us -- shuffling cover elements to accommodate the barcode is ... well, not a pain in the bum, exactly, but an hour you could have spent more pleasantly. At left is a snapshot of the finished cover ... if you have the Lulu version, you'll notice the difference. A great big white swatch with a lot of bars and numbers.)

So, with the interior and cover files uploaded, the next thing you receive from CreateSpace is a service message: thanks for uploading your files. They'll be checked for viablity, and we'll email you when you're clear to order your proof copy.

In fact, as delaying/annoying as this part of the process is, it's actually the one area where Lulu.com could learn a thing or two from CreateSpace. At Lulu.com, no human eyeballs see the project between the uploading and the delivery of the proof copy. Via Lulu, there's no manual check that things are problem-free before you order. Now, Lulu.com they could really use a human in there, because they also use EPS printers which can make for some "font issues" that can break your heart. (My vampyre novels, for instance, were proof-printed three times before they were right.) At CreateSpace, it appears that human eyeballs look at the PDF, or its technical details, and the file will be pronounced "good to go."

Patience, here, again: it takes a day or two for this process.

As soon as you receive your email, you're clear to order the proof. Get ready to wince, if you're overseas, because USPS priority is your budget option on the shipping ... at around US$26. On the current exchange rather, that's about A$35, plus the cost of the proof itself. Bite the bullet and pay the money.

Now, CreateSpace promises (warns?) that it can take five working days to manufacture the book, and USPS can't guarantee delivery in less than four weeks. In reality, the book was shipped in 24 hours, and it was in my mailbox ten days later, 11 days total.

The quality is superb. I don't have a single criticism to make. CreateSpace do an absolutely top-line job at the technical level. Kudos to all concerned. It was also securely packed, and delivered in perfect condition.

Now, the cost of an average book manufactured via CreateSpace is about US$8 ... unless you upgrade to a "pro" account for the book. "Pro accounted" books are manufactured for about half the price -- which makes you viable in the Amazon marketplace. Remember, the Amazon share of the list price is about 55%, so if your manufacture costs are too high, your profit margin from the sale might take years to pay back the costs of pre-press work, before you see a buck for yourself. The cost of the upgrade to "pro" is US$39 per book, and if you're publishing a lot of books to Amazon, it's going to get a bit expensive. There's no way to circumvent this. Like the commercial says, "just do it."

Okay ... you've gone over the proof with a fine-toothed comb, and she's good to go. You now go back to CreateSpace, log in, and activate the book -- open it for sale. This is the point where you're wanting, expecting, NEEDING the instant gratification of clicking the "publish" button, as you do on a blog -- or, indeed, as you do at Lulu.com -- and having the book just appear in your storefront.

Get ready to start the thumb twiddling diploma course.

There are two places where your book will appear at, or via, CreateSpace: in your estore, and on Amazon. The book will be in the estore instantaneously, but (!) the cover image will not go online for five days ... so before you can start in on the marketing and the mailing lists and the and campaign ... you better hold your horses and take a Valium or two ... actually, try valerian, it's better for you ... for five days, because the cover won't be up. (By contrast, at Lulu, the whole thing is automatic and instant.)

If that isn't enough, consider a PhD in thumb twiddling, with a second major in advanced cat's cradle studies. Because it will take FIFTEEN DAYS for a just-published book to appear on Amazon.

Two weeks will go by between publication and availability.

Ouch.

And this is why THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE might be published and available in paperback, hardcover and ebook via Mel Keegan OnLine, and Lulu.com, and Payloadz.com ... but if you want to give it for Christmas (or get it for yourself as a holiday pressie), you might not be able to track it down at Amazon.

Infuriating, isn't it? To date, we've been going through the process since October 4th, and have about ten days to go, to get THE SWORDSMAN "up there."


Cheers,
MK.

Curious electric

No, not the Jon and Vangelis album ... though I could say good things about it. I've had it on plastic, that weird black vinyl stuff, for a looooong time. (Believe it or not, we still have a [gasp!] record player.) But no, not that. This somewhat paradoxical bit of feedback that's come out of the sales figures for July:

The vast majority of SF readers prefer paperbacks. Historical fiction readers love their screenreaders and eBooks.

As Bilbo said, "Isn't that odd?" You'd have put money on it being the other way around. Being something of an SF fancier myself, I love my gadgets, but when I'm reading historical fiction, I not only like a book, I like a bloody great big hardcover.

Speaking of ebooks: apologies to one and all. The screenreader version of WHITE ROSE OF NIGHT is much later than I had anticipated ... and it's all my fault. It's sitting there, waiting for me to go through and approve the layout, and I've been so buried in work, I haven't had the chance. So --

If you're waiting for WHITE ROSE formatted especially for your Palm or Pocket PC, give me a few more days, and I'll have it done.

And now for a reader's question that caught me by surprise. What happened (she asked) to the slim volume of Keegan's poems, 'MK: 20 Poems.' And the answer to this excellent question is ... I'm clueless. Sometime, somewhere in the changeover to the new website, it slipped through the cracks and went missing. Vamoosed into some other dimension. It's not linked into anything at this point in time, and although I'd had the idea of making it a free part of the Members' Zone ... I forgot. Utterly.

Next problem: I can't even find a copy of it. I know it's on one of the backup archives somewhere, however, and I hope to be able to find it later today, or perhaps tomorrow. At which point I'll link it into the blog here -- free download and so forth, with my apologies.

The same reader asked, do I write a lot of poetry? I used to, a long time ago. These days I write poetry only to enrich a book. There's a sonnet in THE SWORDSMAN, for instance, and buried right in the middle of NOCTURNE is a poem which always gets overlooked (even by me), because it *is* buried in the middle of the book.(Not much call for poetry in NARC and HELLGATE, but you can usually find an excuse to write verse in fantasy fiction.)

The reader who asked about this is not a "vampyre person," but is a great devotee of romantic poetry, so rather than say something crass like, "Buy the goddamned book," I'm going to be decent, and include the poem right here.

(For those of you who can't bear poetry, skip the next part.)

I have walked alone
Through the silent places of the world
And tasted of night’s shadows,
Which coil like troubled smoke upon the mind.
I have heard the sigh
Of calm, deep waters; they call to me
To rest in stillness, everlasting and resigned.
The hollowness within
Is filled with echoings of cherished dreams
That, one by one, have died;
And, hearing those still waters
In the labyrinths of endless nights, I’ve cried.

And this alone, of all things, have I learned and kept:
Love is worth each tear of blood I ever wept.

***

Harking back for a moment to the 'Mars of Bust' post of last week or so ... headlining the science news today is the little story that they've struck real, genuine water ice about 2" under the surface on Mars. You gotta like that.




Like I said -- Mars or bust! However, I will add this: if we get there at all, it won't be the work of some of the scientists at the University of Arizona, in Tucson ... someone at the university either neglected to call in a cold-weather specialist, or actually refused to call one in (and I prefer to believe the former), leaving the Arizona-dwelling scienctists at the U ... hot weather people, all of them ... puzzling about how a chunk of warm(er) metal (ie., a spade), when shoved into a deposit of ice-gravel ... comes out of said ice gravel with stuff stuck to it. Geeze Louise, guys, any 9-year-old who ever shoveled out a driveway in upstate NY can figure this one out without even rubbing two brain cells together.

Every had your tongue stuck to a frozen window? (And no, I haven't ... I'm not quite that dense; but I know kids who did.)

I would recommend sending Arctic Canadian, Alaskan, Scottish, Scandinavian, Siberian and Russian science crews to open up the Martian colonies. At least they won't get their spades gummed up.

Or get their tongues frozen to the windows.

For whom the bell tolled

Doorbell, that is. It rang early on Monday afternoon, and there was a delivery dude from local trucking company Star Track (I know; cute name), with a skinny box to be signed for. Ask not for whom the doorbell tolled, because I've been waiting for it since Thursday, which is at least six wees ago. And...

Here it is, halfway to installation. All I need now is a wifi adaptor, and I'm back in business ... though I am a tad-bit disappointed. I don't get to saunter into IT Warehouse an ask where they keep the gay cables. There was one in the box. Its' a 22" wide Samsung monitor which is coupled up to a Dell computer, and this old laptop will be retired with honors. It can go out to grass with my blessings.

Have you ever counted the number of computers you've bought, over the years? A few days ago I was tallying up the regiment of typewriters that have all gone to that great print shop in the sky; the last few of them coexisted with surprising harmony with the first computers, but change was in the air and they knew they were doomed. They slunk away in docile surrender when the first desktop PC came throug the door.

It was a dual disk machine. Remember those? You started with two 5.25" floppies, with your operating system (MS Dos 2.1) on one and your application on the other. You had two floppy drives and you juggled disks. Next came an 086 with your actual, genuine hard drive. All 30MB of it. (That machine cost $2500, believe it or not ... contrast that with the $600 laptops you can get today. And shudder.) Next came a 386 with a 100MB harddrive (and a power switch on the back that arced and was always gunked up with corrosion. Go figure). Next, a Compaq system which was your actual $6000 Pentium I, to which I added an extra harddrive ($999) and (this was outrageous in 1996/7) a CD burner ($1700). In those days, blank disks cost A$7 EACH. The Compaq was one of the much-lamented Presarios, and it was full of bugs, kinks, quirks. To get a job done by a specific deadline, I ended up paying two grand for another Pentium -- something called an Edge, whatever that was. It worked: I'm not complaining! The Compaq stuck around and did service as a word processor for several more years. If you didn't ask too much of it, well, it didn't deliver too much, but it kept on working. Next was Pentium III, which ran Win98 like lighning. Then a build-up that was bits of this and bits of that. It cost $800 (without a monitor) and was screamingly fast for its day. Then, an Acer with was Celeron inside (and which is still doing sterling service on the other desk) ... then this laptop; then another laptop which 'had to be done,' because SOME system had to run Vista, and no machine we have had the brains to run it. And lastly, the Dell which is going online right now (and which is an XP-Pro machine ... I'm not impressed with Vista. Sorry guys).

I've lost count. I'm also sure I've forgotten some machine which landed in some dumpster yonks ago. You work it out. And I'm not even going to think about the printers I've acquired in the same time frame ... though I will mention that I paid $2,400 for a HP Laser back in the mid-1990s. Makes your blood run cold, doesn't it? Right now, you can get a laser for about $90. [Sounds of slow strangulaton]

So, as of tomorrow, I don't have an excuse for not getting boat-loads of work done, an if I don't deliver the haunted house novel in a timely fashion, you have every right to deliver a swift e-kick. In fact, I *am* beginning to get the feeling that comes over every writer from time to time: a kind of restlessness, where only one thing will cause the itch in the fingertips to go away ... getting the story out of the brain and into the computer. Even the subsidiary characters are fully-formed, and I have the ending to the story; I just have to get onto Google Earth and choose the exact location for the house itself.

An old house, with a history. An isolated house, where time, distance and winter will easily come together to weave a kind of prison...

Trust me, it's going to be fun. No vampyres in this story ... but I do have several more plotlines for the characters from NOCTURNE and TWILIGHT, and it wouldn't take much persuasion to inspire me to write another novel there. I'd also like to get back into THE SWORDSMAN and finish out that story, but first I want to get HELLGATE finished, 'right to the end,' as they say; and what readers are actually asking me for lately is (no surprise here) more NARC. More Jarrat and Stone. Oh, yeah.

These stories are all on the agenda -- it's just a question of time. Bear with me. Seeing the new website is, in itself, enormously inspiring.

Speaking of which, said website launches in about 36 hours. It's in full working order, with just two items waiting to go up. The screen-reader versions of the ebooks for NOCTURNE and WHITE ROSE are the last elements waiting for upload. And with the new computer installed, I'm sure I'll get my 'second wind.' That's when the endorphins kick in and you don't feel the pain any more.

The Bard strikes back

No sooner had I uploaded my last post than I got a challenge. Nothing to do with the topic of movie violence, or whether I'm right or wrong to have reservations about it. I halfway imagined somebody would be upset about my not worshipping the ground Steven Spielberg walks on ... or something. But, no. Or, not yet anyway. The challenge was along the lines of, "All right, Smarty-pants, if you're so clever, how DO you write a sonnet?"

Okay, kids, since I've never been one to run away from a challenge, here goes:

Sonnets 101.

A sonnet is a rhyming poem where the lines and rhythm (metre) are set in exact patterns. Just (duh) take a look at an existing sonnet, and reverse-engineer it. I'm going to paste in the sonnet I wrote for THE SWORDSMAN, and we'll pick it to pieces right here...

How shall I say that I have never known
A thing more fair than life, than love, more rare?
Yet must I say, more precious, still, than these
Is friendship's very soul, and mateship's care.

A lie would pass these lips, were I to claim
That I have never wooed — nor loved, nor lost;
Yet all my lost affections leave me thus:
Cherishing friendship's pleasure ... and the cost.

For, seldom do the years design this joy:
Two hearts, two souls, around one cause entwined,
Where friendship, courage, joy and all the rest
Yield such sweet sorceries as soothe the mind ...

All this is surely true. Yet, still I say:
When friendship turned to love, I bless'd the day.


THE SWORDSMAN is a kind of 'court of the Medici' gay fantasy novel, so the 'sound and feel' of the sonnet reflect this ... and it's why I chose to use a sonnet instead of another poetic form. This pattern was 'The In Thing' for a long time, in exactly this era, from before Leonardo till well after Queen Elizabth I.

Notice it has 14 lines: 3 sets of 4, and two danglers.

Notice that the rhyming lines are 2 and 4 in each of the three 'verses' and then the dangling couplet rhymes.

Notice that EVERY line has 10 syllables. Not one less, nor more.

Lastly, notice that the 'punchline' to the whole piece is in the couplet at the end.

The sonnet form is uncomfortably like the limmerick. A limmerick is five lines, where the 'punchline' is saved for the last line, and lines 1, 2 an 5 rhyme, and lines 3 and 4 rhyme, albeit differently with each other:

If one caught a Chinchilla in Chile
And shaved off his beard, willy-nilly
It could rightly be said
That one have just made
A Chilean Chinchilla's chin chilly

Welllll ... the sonnet is distressingly similar in form, but I've never yet read a funny one. Now, there's a thought! (Can you imagine Shakespearean limmericks??)

How do you write a limmerick? First think of three rhyming words where the third one has the potential to be used as a punchline. Then, use the other two to frame the setup in Lines 1 and 2, and you're only short of the bridge:

On the chest of a barmaid at Yale
were tattooed the prices of ale,
and upon her behind,
for the sake of the blind,
was the same information in Braille.

(and yeah, okay, that's the 'printable version,' I know. Young children might be reading this. Although I can't imagine why.)

How do you write a sonnet? First, grasp the GIST of it. What's it about? This gist is the punchline, though the poem isn't funny. (I would LOVE to see a hilarious sonnet ... and a heartbreaking limmerick...) Once you know what the sonnet is about, you explore the concept and then have the inestimable joy of beating it into the format of 4x 4-line 'stanzas' plus one rhyming couplet...

Take it away, Bill, let's have Number 57! What a belter that one was:

Being your sad slave, what could I do but tend
Upon the times and hours of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend
Nor services to do, till you require:

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu:

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those;-

So true a fool is love, that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.


...and yep, that was one of the two sonnets from Shapespeare's pen, rather than my own, that I used in FORTUNES OF WAR!