All right, my ducks, here’s what’s happening in the month of November.
* I am leaving this Friday to put in an appearance at World Fantasy Convention, in Saratoga Springs, NY. I may be on a few panels, but I’m not sure yet. What I do know for sure is that I’m going to be reading a little bit from the first Jill Kismet book, Night Shift, on Sunday, November 4, at about 10AM. If you’re at the convention, come nurse your hangover with me. I promise to be gentle.
* I am confirmed at the Beaverton Powell’s Local Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authorfest, on Wednesday, November 14th, 7:00pm. That’s Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. I look forward to seeing maybe one or two of you there?
* Last but not least, I’m going to Orycon this year! Again, I don’t know if I’ll be on any panels and I haven’t been told about any readings. Once I know something more definite I shall definitely let you know.
Between all this and Thanksgiving too, I shall probably be a nervous wreck come December 1. But it’s a good thing–I will (hopefully) meet a few Readers and (definitely) see a few old friends. Travel during the holiday season is going to be a total utter bloody disaster, but well, one bears with what one has to. At least I’m going to be safely home before the real scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas begins. Though from the Christmas decorations I saw hanging up in a Major Big Chain Store yesterday, I’m beginning to think the marketing peeps want us stressed over Christmas all year long.
My blogging is going to be spotty or nonexistent for a while, since I’m packing and preparing to head out on Friday. I shall try, however, to stay in touch.
So this morning I had a nightmare. It involved a virus that turned everyone it infected into a semi-vampire, and the infected started hunting the non-infected, for food and fun. We were locked in our house, and the kernel of this dream was me holding the front door against someone who had a key and was trying to get in. The small group of buddies with the guy trying to get in hung back a little, waiting to see what would happen. I held the door and the lock so it wouldn’t move.
They got tired of trying it, and drifted away to find other prey. I was shaking, and went back down the hall. The DHM was sleeping, and I tried to wake him up. “What? They left, didn’t they?” And he went back to sleep.
So I started packing up everything useful and all the food that wouldn’t spoil much in a drive. “What are you doing?” the Princess asked.
“We’re packing everything useful in the car, and we’re going out to ________’s,” I replied grimly. “They have guns.”
Then I woke up. My first thought was, wow, trip anxiety is a bitch, man. My second was, predictably, I could write that. It works. Hm…How would I do that?
That is, I suppose, the curse of being a writer. Nightmares, odd thoughts, all sorts of things get filed under “material.” There’s good material and bad material, but rarely is an experience ever just what it is. Rather, it is to be strip-mined to provide food for characters. All things serve the Muse.
Now that I’ve stopped sweating and shaking, I might want to write that one down. Whew.
In other news, I thought I wanted a Wikipedia entry until I read this. If I wouldn’t even be allowed to delete information that would make it easier to stalk/identity thieve me, and if I wouldn’t even be allowed to correct inaccurate info, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. Also, there’s enough bad juice floating around out there (people who don’t like my name, or found something wrong with my books) that a wiki just seems…well, a bit like an infection I could do without. It might be mostly benign, but maybe I shouldn’t wish for it.
I’m almost wondering if I should add a wiki to my website, just for reference purposes about each series. I’m sure a few Readers would enjoy that.
Oh, and last night we carved pumpkins. They are appropriately spooooooky. Our sycamore hasn’t really dropped its leaves yet, so we still have a great deal of rustling going on when a breeze wanders by at night. It’s like the whole world conspires on Halloween.
I am still feeling the effects of that nightmare. Wow. Such powerful feelings are nothing to mess with.
So…all the plans are jelling for WFC. I leave on Friday. I don’t like planes and I’m not ultra-fond of travel, so it’s going to be (wait for it) an ADVENTURE. And we have pumpkin-carving to do before I go. Quel marvelous!
I prefer no adventures, as I have many adventures going on inside my head. But I’ve already committed to this and bought the plane tickies, and I know I’ll enjoy it once I’m there. I’m just nervous about travel. I am really a homeloving little soul. It is no help at all that I have no sense of direction at all and can’t navigate my way out of a wet paper bag. (To make up for this, the Sullen One has a fine sense of direction and is unflappable while navigating.)
So I guess we’ll see how it turns out…
All right, so there are a couple of questions I’ve gotten in the mail lately.
There seems to be some confusion with the timeline in The Devil’s Right Hand. What is the exact timeline?
Well, it goes like this. The original timeline was supposed to be:
Working For The Devil
(5 years)
Dead Man Rising
(2 years)
Devil’s Right Hand
Saint City Sinners
To Hell and Back
However, in reworking the drafts, my editor pointed out that Jace carrying a torch for Danny and Danny carrying a torch for Japh for five years was Just Too Much, and after much thought I agreed. (Thankfully Danny didn’t care.) So, here’s the timeline we ended up with:
WFTD
(10 months-1 year)
DMR
(3-5 yrs)
DRH
SCS
THB
You’ll notice it’s unclear between Dead Man Rising and Devil’s Right Hand because Dante loses track of time in a big way–partly because she doesn’t have a real good grasp on it to begin with, being a psion (you’ll notice how Trina the scheduler runs her life in the first two books) and partly because Japh deliberately removed all traces of time passing. Whether he did it to help her recover or for another reason is still an open question.
Unfortunately, some traces of the old timeline must remain despite the best in copyedits and continuity checks. If that’s the case, my apologies, but publishing is an imperfect business indeed.
When is the next Steelflower book coming out?
It’s in my head, I just haven’t written it yet. Getting three books out under a very, very tight deadline this year was difficult and I didn’t have room for the Incidental Novel at all. Hopefully this upcoming year will change all that.
I can tell you that the next book is tentatively titled Steelflower’s Song and deals with the troupe landing in Antai and discovering people looking for the Skaialan, Redfist. He has revenge to deal on Clan Connaight, and Kaia can do no less than help him. Hee. Hope that helps.
That’s pretty much all I have time for today. I have Halloween candy to buy and some other few items to pick up for the trip. Oh, and I need to get newspapers, because we’re carving pumpkins tonight.
I’m buying the New York Times. Somehow, for a grand punkin-carvin’, the local rag just doesn’t seem right.
Posted on October 26th, 2007 | Posted in Real Life
Today is Friday.
Which means the week is almost over. Pretty much over.
*wild celebration ensues*
Between being the single mum this past week and Sir Pewkington doing his thing, between the numerous personal disasters and the lack of sleep, between the nervousness over the upcoming trip and my stomach trying to crawl out of my ribcage several times (an unpleasant experience in the extreme) I have been waiting for this bloody week to end with varying degrees of impatience and impassioned begging of the gods.
I realize I’ve been “killing a lot of pixels” lately. That’s Casa Saintcrow-speak for playing a video game. The colors are bright, there is no real peril, and one has clearly-defined goals to work toward. (Yes, I’m playing World of Warcraft. I am a geek.) I’ve been playing for an hour or two after the kids go to bed and it shows–I’ve never had a toon this high.
I feel like Elmer Fudd–every time I say “West and welaxation at wast!” some damn thing else happens.
Eh, anyway, I am about to shut off the wireless and go back to the book in progress. Drowning my sorrows in fiction seems good enough for me.
Can I please has this week over, pretty pretty please with sugar on top?
It’s not like this week has been without its pleasures, like a guiseppe sandwich from La Bottega and the Selkie talking about Nabokov and figuring out just what that Trader had to do with the situation anyway. And there have been hugs from the Little Prince (”I puked on your hand, Mummy. You’re the best!“) and enthusiasm from the Princess (”I LOVE your tunafish sandwiches, Mum. They make me feel safe.”)
I know I am lucky, lucky, lucky.
But can I please, please, have this week over? I didn’t do anything to anyone, I don’t care that I didn’t deserve this week in the first place, I just want it to go away.
I promise I will be good. I swear.
Tonight I am going to go to bed, and when I wake up in the morning (please God let me sleep) I want this week over.
First of all, this is hilarious and I think I went to school with this guy or his soul cousin or something. Or LOTS of his soul cousins, most of which I probably dated for a week or so.
Next up: I wrote about how I am of the firm opinion writer’s block doesn’t exist. Danae West disagrees. While I am willing to further refine my stance to say that yes, neurological damage, head trauma, or other organic things might keep one from writing, I don’t think we should call that writer’s block. When Danae speaks of writer’s block and I speak of it, we’re speaking about two different things. Thoughts, anyone?
The oatmeal cookies I was jonesing for this morning? I walked down to the store with the kids to get oatmeal for them. They are currently baking. Mmmmmmmh. The pan de campagne turned out well yesterday too–so well, in fact, that there is only a heel of it left.
The Grand High Book Weasel sent me some Halloween cards–one lovely one with a crow on it, and a funny one about damnation and candy. Heh. Awesome. She sure knows how to make a girl feel better, does that GHBW.
I am waiting for the acetaminophen to kick in so I can have some relief from this bastard headache, then it’s straight back into the Jill book, damn the torpedoes, etc., etc….
Well, guess who is galloping around the house, screaming about the Headless Horseman, and eating everything that isn’t nailed down?
You guessed it. Sir Pewksalot, my happy little third child, is all right after yesterday’s spewing episode. More than all right, he’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. *sigh* The constitution of the young.
I found this about an hour ago, and it just tickled me pink. I adooooore Steven Brust. Srsly, his handling of dialogue in homage to Dumas in The Phoenix Guards…I’ll stop before I embarrass myself.
Anyway, since I have no energy for real in-depth reviews, I’ll just mini-review things I’ve read lately. ‘Kay? Mmmm’kay.
* Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain. Taut writing, very nicely done mystery (though a bit undercooked and full of deus ex machina as my kitchen is full of yeast) and a female serial killer, for once. A few problems though: the femme serial killer isn’t a female serial killer, she’s just a recycling of the Dark Emasculating Feminine. The “good” female character is so hopelessly f!cked-up she’s lost most of her power, which is common in books featuring the DEF. STILL, worth a read and very nicely done; the writing is crisp and lovely.
* All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By, John Farris. Talk about the emasculating Dark Feminine. I know this book is a classic of the horror genre, but for Christ’s sake, could there be any more exposition??!!? I don’t like huge chunks of infodump. Still, I waded through it off and on for a week, and the opening and closing scenes are nicely dramatic and gory. If one reads this book, it should be as an examination of the history of the horror genre in the 70s, and it should further be an examination of racial attitudes. I don’t know if Farris is from the South, but he got the breathtaking endemic racism down cold.
Speaking of which, the equation of the Dark Emasculating Feminine with the just-plain-anything-darker-than-milk (I am speaking here of the conflation of miscegenation and the emasculating feminine) and the breathless denigration of any religion other than Christianity that usually accompanies it is beginning to wear on me. Time to go read some Octavia Butler and Sjoo and Mor, stat!
* Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey. I am sorry, I know I promised the Selkie, but I just couldn’t do it. I just can’t. I know it’s the formula for much of what comes after, but I just could. Not. Take. It. And not because of the portrayal of the Mormon church in that time period, because the portrayal is largely correct. (Mountain Meadows, anyone?) Especially when it comes to the polygamy. *sigh*
No, it’s just plain bad overwrought writing and I am not that interested in Jane Withersteen’s moral struggle. I just ain’t. If I need to know about this book I’ll just ask the Selkie.
* As an antidote to everything, I’ve picked up Runciman’s The Sicilian Vespers. (He did a marvelous history of the Crusades, too.) Last night I got a few paragraphs in before I got to the death of Constans II (hammered on the head with a soap-dish, by a disgruntled servant) and Runciman’s dry treatment made me laugh out loud at the absurdity of history. I mean, what a gruesome, idiotic death.
The Selkie has me starting Lonesome Dove. I tried Streets Of Laredo and had a hard time with it, but Lonesome Dove won a Pulitzer. Maybe it’ll be easier. At least I have Runciman for the antidote.
