From the Publisher of Royal Road West
Yesterday, a paper-binding assistant in my office at Royal Road West asked me if Ulric the scribe was the only writer in ancient Kesteva. That got me to thinking: Ulric definitely was the best-known writer of ancient Kesteva to us today, but he was not the only one. Today, I ask you to consider Bellius of Roxen. He isn’t as well-known as Ulric of Skara, but they were contemporaries. Like Ulric, Bellius was a scribe who made his living writing words and putting those words in front of the public. His approach was different than Ulric’s, however. Bellius aimed his words at other writers such as Ulric. While Ulric wrote about the sights and sounds of his world, Bellius wrote about how to write about them and how to sell the words.
Bar news
Ulric’s newssheet was distributed once a week to inns, taverns and other locations for purchase by residents and travelers. It contained travel tips, local news (or gossip), profiles of interesting people, etc.
Bellius’ sheet was similarly produced but distributed to bookshops and bars. Its contents were different from Ulric’s. Here are the headers of a sheet our Translator recently converted into English (we have no immediate plans to publish it):
- This week in Scribing
- 10 Scribes Who Make A Living at Their Vocation, and So Can You!
- Twisted Words
- How to Eavesdrop With Success
- Chalk Talks: How to Give Them, How to Finish Them
- Lettering Techniques
- Letters
This last section was an innovation in Kesteva’s scribing world. Writers would write to each other via Bellius’ newssheet. Conversations would range far and wide and last for months, with contributions coming from all corners of the kingdom.
Beyond Bellius
Another contemporary of Ulric’s and Bellius’ left civilization to become a hermit. He returned to towns and cities often to lecture on the topic, and he produced a quarterly sheet, copied and distributed through an independent copyhouse, called Simple Mornings: An Account of How to Have Nothing to Do With Society. Our research indicates he made a good living at it. Another writer, who had lost his job as a reeve in his majesty’s service, began writing tip sheets on how to invest one’s money. He later produced a book and gave chalk talks about the importance of money. Yet another scribe we discovered in the Editor’s trove of material produced books about getting rid of excess, a concept he called “Size-Downing.” Another scribe was more of a poet than a copyist. So far as we can tell from her recovered and translated diary, she wrote exactly one poem a year, and we know from other accounts of the time that they were fairly regarded.
So, no, Ulric was not the only scribe in ancient Kesteva. We think he was more popular than Bellius and the others because he was more prolific. Of all the material the anonymous former newspaper Editor in a fog-shrouded Midwestern town pulled through a multidimensional door from ancient Kesteva into our world, his count of works so far exceeds that of any other writer except “the crown” and its numerous works written by numerous authors. What do you think? Is the key to fame showing up, and showing up often?
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