Boskone schedule

I’ll be at Boskone this coming weekend, and with any luck I’ll be a little less frazzled than I was at Arisia.  (Although if I’m entertainingly frazzled, then that’s fine too.)  Here’s my schedule for the con:

Friday, 8pm: Biblical Themes and Religion in Genre Fiction
OK, the Bible is full of some really fabulous stories, and a lot of people are familiar with it, so there’s resonance in the well of souls. What other reasons propel writers back to those tales? And what about the Koran and the Torah—do they not also have fabulous stories? Give example of great SF/Fantasy that have used Biblical and religious themes (Because there are never enough books to read…)
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Walter H. Hunt, Dani Kollin, Steven Popkes, Margaret Ronald

Saturday, 3pm: The Heroine’s Journey
We’ve got a whole book and academic sub-genre dedicated to the hero’s journey and its mythic importance in our culture (thank you, Joseph Campbell!) As usual, they left out the girls. Is the heroine’s journey different from that of the hero? If so, in what ways and why? (Is the differentiation embodied in those two terms even germane any longer?)
Lois McMaster Bujold, Greer Gilman, Rosemary Kirstein (M), Margaret Ronald, Jo Walton

Sunday, 9:30am: Reading
Margaret Ronald
(I’ll see if I can arrange coffee for anyone who shows up.)

Sunday, 1pm: Why Adults Love YA
Are grown-ups just trying to recapture their mispent youth, or is there something either more compelling about this kind of fiction? If so, what?
Bruce Coville, Michael J. Daley (M), Sarah Beth Durst, Margaret Ronald, Navah Wolfe

As usual, I’m way over my head.  But the last few times that’s happened, I’ve had a lot of fun, so we’ll see how it works out this time.  Hope to see you there!

Wednesday Magic District: Paying more

Phew.  I just finished the manuscript of the third book and sent it away to my editor, and I’m now in the “wandering around the house staring vaguely at spots on the wall” stage of writing.  I hope I’ll be blogging (and updating this site!  finally!) more in the next couple of weeks.  For now, I’m going to tinker with a few short stories, maybe explore a little more in different worlds, and, uh, play lots of video games.  (City 17 is mine!  Or would be, if I weren’t so bad at this game.)

In the meantime, I’ve got a post up at the Magic District sparked by the recent Macmillan/Amazon conflict.  Those of you who are writers or who read writers’ blogs probably know far too much already; those of you who don’t, Rachel Aaron’s post at the Magic District sums up some of it, and I’ve got a few more links in today’s post.  While there’s a lot to be discussed about the whole mess, I’m concentrating on one small part, namely what makes readers pay more for books.   I know my purchasing patterns don’t make much sense, but I suspect there are some factors that come into play for most of us.  Take a look, and let me know what you think.

Big Idea: The urban part of urban fantasy

John Scalzi has again been kind enough to let me post a Big Idea essay on the Whatever — this time, about Wild Hunt, cities, and the magic of new places.  Go and take a look — or, if you’re coming here from that article, hello and welcome!  I’m afraid I’m unlikely to have anything new for you for a little while, since I’m still stuck in a revision, but some of my fiction is linked in the sidebar, and some below — I’d particularly recommend “A Serpent in the Gears” just because I love it so (and because it’s not yet linked — I am terrible at updating my bibliography) or the novel writing text adventures.  Or, if you’d like to read more authors talking about their work, take a look at The Magic District.

Interviews: Stealth nerd and difficult writing

Part of the problem with being stuck head down in novel revisions is that I miss the fun stuff.  (The important stuff is harder to miss, and aside from repeatedly banging my head into a wall Tuesday night, I’m dealing with it.)

But belated as this is, I need to get off my hinder and post about two very kind bloggers who asked me to be interviewed on their sites.  Two interviews are online: Sci-Fi Fan Letter (in which I talk about the difficult parts of writing and decide not to live in my made-up world) and Over the Edge (in which I confess my identity as a stealth nerd (okay, those of you who know me are now wondering how “stealth” plays any part in my nerdiness) and give some examples from the internal soundtrack for Wild Hunt).

I’m really grateful to both sites for inviting me to their interviews, and I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to get around to posting about it.  Funny, how the Internet can both keep me from the novel work and the novel can keep me from the Internet…or maybe it’s just about procrastinating no matter what.

Serpents? On MY dirigible???

…It’s more likely than you’d think.

The grand debut of Professora Lundqvist, Colonel Dieterich, and dear, dear Charles is now up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies! “A Serpent in the Gears” was such a fun story to write, beginning to end, and I loved every part of it. In fact, I love this universe and want to have its steampunk babies write much more in it someday.

Here’s an excerpt. Go and read; I’ve had so much fun with this, and I hope you enjoy it too.

The captain pointed to a lens behind the helmsman. A gray cliff face, cut into deep letters of ten different scripts, receded from our view. “We’ve just passed the graven warning.”

I peered at the bow lenses, trying to get a better look at the warning itself. When I was a child, I’d heard stories (all disdained by my teachers) that the warning had been inscribed into the side of the mountains by an automaton the size of a house, etching the words with a gaze of fire. When I was older, my age-mates and I played at being the team engineered solely for the job of incising those letters, hanging from convenient walls and making what we thought were appropriate rock-shattering noises to match. After such tales, small wonder that my first view of the warning, some twenty years ago, had been so disappointing. Yet I could still recite by heart its prohibition against entering the valley.

The lenses, however, showed no sign of it. Instead, most displayed the same sight: a confection like matching wedding cakes on the mountainsides flanking the pass, the consequences for those who defied the graven warning. Thousands of snub spouts pointed towards us, ranging from full cannon-bore to rifle-bore, the latter too small to see even with the ship’s lenses. My eyes itched to adjust, and I felt a pang just under the straps of my andropter harness, where most men had hearts.

Second time around!

Last year around this time, I was fiddling with my editor’s revisions to Wild Hunt, judging how far I’d come with the early (and massively flawed) draft of the third book, and biting my nails to the quick over the impending release of Spiral Hunt.

Unfortunately, due to a number of problems coming together in a Great Conjunction of Awful, I ended up working overtime on the actual release date, as well as a couple days before and after.  I barely had time to stop and remember that yes, I had a book out that day.  And while I’ve since brought that into my everyday consciousness — enough that I can sometimes stop myself from getting depressed by remembering hey, I’ve got a book out there!  And it doesn’t suck! — I do regret not enjoying that first release date.

So today I’m taking the day off, relaxing a little, and going out for high tea.  Granted, eating little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off is not quite the same as getting solidly drunk for a week (which was one of the first pieces of advice I had regarding how to handle the release date), but both have their therapeutic value.  And this year, maybe I’ll shed some of my nervous habits about the books, now that there’s more out in the world.  (First resolution: stop looking at the Amazon ranking especially when I have no idea what it means.)

If you’re interested in Wild Hunt but don’t know yet if you want to buy it, take a look using the widget on the left here.  You’ll be able to read a good chunk of the novel, and by the time you hit the end of the offered pages, you’ll know whether it’s got your attention.  And by then, it will be too late!  *cue maniacal laughter*

And thanks again to everyone who’s read the books, everyone who reads this blog, and anyone who’s enjoyed my stories over the last few years.  These stories are so much fun to create, and I’m so glad to be able to share them with you.

Arisia schedule — and Wild Hunt release party!

So, here’s my schedule for Arisia 2010, taking place next weekend in in the mighty Harvard ziggurat the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge.  I’ll be there for much of the weekend, though whether I’ll be around much Friday depends on a number of factors (not least whether I’ve got brain left after the work week).

Saturday, 8 PM: Art Within Art
Poems, songs, and other art supposedly created within the world of a larger fictional text—what are your favorites, and what attempts have failed? Margaret Ronald, Meredith Schwartz, David Sklar
(I’ll be moderating this one, and I’m curious to see what we come up with, given that there are a number of different approaches to presenting art within art.  Particularly depending on the medium — fictional films, for example, versus fictional paintings or music, versus poetry…hm…)

Saturday night: Wild Hunt release party!
Come by the party suite and get a look at the new novel!  (Or just cadge some free food and talk geeky to me.  ’S all good.)

Sunday, 10 AM: The City as Character
New Crobuzon, The Sprawl, Newford, even Minneapolis in War For the Oaks. What authors use their cities in the most interesting ways? How does the city contribute to the story? Gordon Linzner (m), Meredith Schwartz,Margaret Ronald, Steve E. Popkes, Daniel Rabuzzi
(Yikes, an early-morning panel right after a late party.  I’ll be lucky if I manage anything along the lines of “city good blerg need coffeee now.”  On the other hand, there are a number of fantasies in which the city is more than setting; it’s the heart of the story. Hmmm…time to go make lists!)

Sunday, 4 PM: Reading, Margaret Ronald
Margaret will be reading a selection from her own works.
(Oh, boy.  I have no idea what to read — Wild Hunt?  The next book isn’t even close to ready yet…a short story?  ”A Serpent in the Gears” will be out by then, and I do love me some dirigibles…)

Sunday, 4:30 PM: fall down go boom Okay, maybe not.  But I do tend to be a little fuzzy around the edges this late in a con.  If I see you there after this point, have pity and don’t ask hard questions like “What is your name?” or “How are you doing?”

If you can’t make it to Arisia, don’t worry; I’ll try to hold another event later on to celebrate.  If you can, come by!

(Incidentally, the reason I haven’t had Anything But The Book Week this time around?  I’ve got a built-in distraction from the release date: the next book.  Which is eating my brain.  But in a good way, not a Lovecraftian way.)

Resolute!

Today’s Magic District post is more than a little disjointed, since I’m currently home sick with the head cold from hell (oh, sinuses, why do you hate me so?) but the gist of it makes sense. New Year’s resolutions are always, always something I fail at, usually by mid-February at the latest. (This is why February used to be such a bad month for me. That, and it’s frickin’ cold.) But this year around, I’m trying to look at it in a different way: making new mistakes. Hell, I’m good at making mistakes, so new ones ought to be a snap, right?

I’ll try to have more about the upcoming book (aaaaaaaaa!) and the release party at Arisia (AAAAAAAA!) up later tonight, depending on how much this cold knocks me out. Meanwhile, I’m off to drink chicken soup in hopes that my head will stop feeling like an overinflated football.

Wednesday Magic District and some news

Today’s Magic District touches on books for the season — whether that’s the Christmas season or just the dark end of the year.  (It also unwittingly duplicates Tim Pratt’s post from yesterday, so send any comments to that post instead.

A few pieces of news: I’ll be having a release party for Wild Hunt at Arisia this year. It’ll be Saturday night, details to be arranged later. (In the meantime, I gotta figure out how to run a con party. Eeep!) Hope to see you there!

Also, my short story “A Serpent in the Gears” has been accepted by Beneath Ceaseless Skies! This is a story that I absolutely love, and I’m thrilled it’s found a home with BCS. Honestly, this world — vaguely steampunk, leaning far more into fantasy than technical accuracy — has been taking up a lot of my imagination of late, and I really love working in it.

Revisions of the third book continue, bit by bit. It’s a little annoying that the day job would choose now to move into overdrive, but it can’t be helped, so I’ll persevere.

Best of the season to all of you.  We’re past the solstice; the light will return, a little more each day.

Wednesday Magic District: Werk werk werk

…Yes, that’s the sound that chickens make.  Werk…

Today’s Magic District is more than a little whiny, since it’s the outgrowth of my current situation.  To sum it up: day job + revisions + overtime = AAAAAAAAAAAAA.  It should get better soon, but in the meantime aaaaaaaaaaaa.

Also, I’ll have some news soon about the release of Wild Hunt — now with 10% more parties! (Parties may or may not involve cake and/or hats.)

Wednesday Magic District: Revision The Revisioning

You are in the middle of revisions.

You have a Magic District post due.

Procrastinate Y/N?

Wednesday Magic District: Identity and turkey

No, not identity as a turkey.  Although recently I’ve been feeling brainless enough that I might just stare up into the sky and drown on the rain falling into my open mouths, as turkeys are said to do.

Today’s Magic District is a bit navel-gazy, but it may be topical for anyone dreading certain questions over Thanksgiving dinner.  Also, it brings up an important question:

Post? Read then post. Post then game.

Blog post late. Drat. Fall days move fast.

Late post also Post With Four! Good! Post asks, four weep, four want, four what, four ROCK! (Post with Four good when lazy.)

Also, this here blog post play Game With Four! Grok Game With Four?

Wednesday Magic District: Books as things

Today’s Magic District riffs straight off the ARCs post earlier this week: I’m still puzzled by how much of a disconnect there is between my perception of the book and the story I wrote.  I don’t think it’s just me, but then again, I know I’ve got all these weird mental tics about writing.

Also, I have my contributor’s copies of The Best Horror of the Year vol. 1!  They are beautiful (okay, for a value of beautiful that includes naked flayed guy on the cover BUT THEY’RE STILL BEAUTIFUL OKAY) and, from what I’ve read of the other stories, chilling.  I had to stop reading so that I wouldn’t be up till two shivering.

Arc! Arc! Arc!

I am terrible, terrible about news.  I hang on, not wanting to post unless I have something interesting to say, and then when something does happen I either squirrel it away or lack the time to write “a proper post” about it.  The end result is a slow blog and news that hasn’t gone out.  But here it is, late but no less relevant:

Yes, I have my Advance Review Copies for Wild Hunt!  And they are beautiful.  I’ve been told that there’s a particular “new book smell” about the copies you receive, or a different feel to them, but for me the most wonderful and strange element of the whole experience is opening it to any page.  There’s always a moment where I don’t quite recognize the words, and then a burgeoning sense of deja vu as it finally clicks that yes, I know this part because I wrote it.

Even though I spent so much time writing this novel, choosing those words, tracing those plots, it seems so far from this bound copy in my hands.  Maybe it’s still some magical quality that I assign to books, maybe it’s that I still can’t quite believe this whole situation, but it still feels strange that there are books — multiple books, now! — that are full of the stories I’ve told.

Release date is January 12.  Just in time for Arisia!