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Journal
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Friday, July 25, 2008
"Hype" is such an ugly word, Mr. Bond.
My amazing publicist Janice Kaplan has marshalled her unholy myriad of Uruk-Hai publicity flacks and scored me all this press, like
I boggle.
The interviews were a lot of fun to do. The Gazette reporter was a high school intern who was very diligent and infectiously excited. The Jewish Week reporter seemed, over the phone, like an old pro who was amused by my freakish surreal ideas ("I've never said this to an interviewee before," he said, "but you're really weird." It was clearly meant as a compliment).
The Post guy, Dan Zak, was very hip and a really great interviewer, seizing on things I would say and asking intelligent followup after followup, drilling down until I was saying things that surprised me. He also did not ask any of the questions that I'm used to hearing (like "why genre?"). It was a two hour conversation, and he did a fantastic job synthesizing a coherent Q&A out of those two hours of intense ramble -- stitching together comments taken from wildly disparate parts of the conversation and managing to preserve the sense of it. (Though I do look, in the photo, like I am indeed single-parenting on a jet-lag-filled international trip, and there are the usual little content quibbles (like I would never say "Sam", as opposed to "Samuel R." or "Chip", Delany... :-) ))
Note also the reference to the blogospherical greatness discussion (I want y'all to know I did namecheck Nick, but that got cut).
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Monday, July 21, 2008
Juvenalia Meme
Elsewhere Mr. Moles inaugurates a meme: "Post the oldest piece of your writing you can find that isn’t completely embarrassing."
Actually there's plenty of my writing from when I was a kid that I don't find embarassing; I rather like, for instance, the "poems" my parents transcribed for me when I was two and three years old. (One went like this: "Some are happy / Some are sad / Others take flight". The "take flight" thing is, I believe, the influence of de Brunhoff. I feel like that one works pretty well, yes?)
However I also happen to have unearthed on this here computer a poem I wrote the summer after high school; and it quotes a lovely friend of mine who just got married this past weekend to a lovely guy (in a very lovely wedding, in which Aviva was one of a vast river of white-clad day-lily-bedecked flower girls)... and the serendipity of that is irresistable.
The title may have been added somewhat later.
Arlington, Summer 1988
Last time I saw her we sat with the moon
on her roof.
Pipes stuck up like stumps
and barbed wire grew in hedges,
and all around Manhattan had heaved itself up
to a great height over the sea.
Yesterday I saw her here, in lawns and dogwood
where
(she says in wonder)
"the trees are bigger than the houses."
Little houses, with little shadows in the almost-summer sun.
(...Mazel Tov & many happy returns, Maus & Ed!)
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
Valley of the Giants
My story "Valley of the Giants", originally published in Argosy, is now online at Fantasy Bookspot... enjoy!
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
Worldcon Schedule
From August 6th to 10th I'll be in Denver, Colorado for the World Science Fiction Convention, where I'll be launching The Ant King and Other Stories. Here's the plan:
- 4:00 PM
- Kaffeklatsch
- 10:00 AM
- Clarion West Writers Workshop: How it Helped My Career
- 1:00 PM
- Open Source Software and Intellectual Property
- 2:30 PM
- City Building: from Ankh-Morpork to Ambergris
- 11:30 AM
- Clarion West Student Readings, the 21st Century
- 2:00-5:00 P.M.
- Strange Horizons Tea Party
followed by
Buckell/Lake/Rosenbaum Book Launch
SFWA Suite (in the Sheraton, on a non-party floor)
Launching:
Perhaps I shall see some of you there?
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Story So Far
I'm a bit stuck on the novel I'm writing, Resilience.
It may be a good kind of stuck. At any rate, I'm trying not to panic. I have been just rolling along without a plan, gamboling and makin' stuff up, and I think this is the point at which I go "holy crap WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??" I'm about midway through and I often hit this point midway through longish short stories. (Indeed arguably I've hit it more than once with this novel, and each time figured out just enough to keep me going a bit longer).
So this Tuesday when Aviva and I sat down to write together (she finished a picture book entitled GRUMPY POOP, which is awesome), I couldn't really get any more words down so instead I made this pretty chart which shows the book so far. Each box is a chapter, and each page occupies twenty squares of graph paper.
I sure hope it helps.
Noah was out riding trams with his grandfather at the time. For like three hours. Noah likes riding the tram.
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
Yowza (various book-shilling news)
Much happenings on the promoting-The-Ant King front:
I'm excited. I'm all abuzz and aquiver and stuff.
Book getting realer every day! Lordy!
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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Better Late than Never
Due to my lack of clue, I have forgotten until now to link to the Strange Horizons Fund Drive, which is supposed to be over by now, though it seems to be lingering as they haven't quite reached their goal.
SH is the longest-running and arguably the premier venue for online speculative fiction, pro-rate-paying, all-volunteer, donation-supported, and a really great bunch of folks.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Worldcon Suite Sublet Bleg
So does anyone out there have a suite they've rented for a party at Worldcon, on (ideally) Friday or Saturday (or Thursday or Sunday if need be) who doesn't need it the whole time?
For instance, if you are only using it in the evening but happen to have it available in the early afternoon to sublet for a joint book launch party and perhaps, oh, I don't know, tea party?
Or do you have contact info for anyone who would? (Other than Tor, who was the obvious suspect but who will not work out in this case.)
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