Oct 30
2008

Calgary

I’m in Calgary, which is–from what I’ve seen so far–an extremely nice city. Unfortunately it’s also frickin’ cold, so I doubt I’ll ever be moving here.

I had a very nice trip up here. I splurged on skymiles and went first class for the New Orleans-Salt Lake City leg of the trip, and I’ve decided that I need to become filthy rich because OhMyGod is that the way to fly on long flights! Then I ran into L.E. Modesitt in the Salt Lake airport, and since the flight to Calgary was only half-full we shuffled seat assignments and chatted the entire way to Calgary. And to complete the good-trip experience, Lee had a rental car reserved, so he gave me a ride to the hotel, which saved me the expense of a taxi. Woo!

Once at the hotel I ran into a number of savory and unsavory characters, including (but not limited to) Jeremy Lassen, John Picacio, and Jay Caselberg. I also got to meet some new people, such as Marjorie Liu (who is just awesome crazy beautiful and nice!) and Todd Lockwood–whose art I’ve admired for quite some time. Later I joined a group for dinner in the hotel, but my energy died out right about 9pm, so I paid my portion, made my excuses, and crawled back to my room where I died for several hours.

Unfortunately my far-too-efficient internal clock woke me up at about 5am (sigh). This morning I took a walk to find someplace (other than the hotel) to have breakfast, but after about six blocks I decided that I didn’t give a crap about food anymore, I just wanted to find a place to warm the &^$! up! It also took me far too long to figure out why the hell it was still full dark at nearly 8am. Finally my coffee-deprived brain kicked into gear and reminded me that Calgary is quite a bit further NORTH than Louisiana. Duh. (Actually I think this is the farthest north I’ve ever been, but I’ll need to look at a map to be positive.)

More later, hopefully with pictures.

Oct 29
2008

Heading North

I’ll be winging my way to Calgary in just a few hours for World Fantasy. I have a reading scheduled for Friday at noon, at which time I’ll be reading from Mark of the Demon and, time permitting, a short story that was part of the inspiration.

If you’re attending, I hope to see you there!

Oct 23
2008

Cool book stuff

The revisions to Mark of the Demon have been accepted, and it is now on its way to the copyeditor. Whew!

Plus, the release has been pushed up to June 23, 2009, and coolest of all, it’s now available for pre-order!!

Random House

Amazon

Target

Oct 15
2008

Things I’ve been meaning to post

Oh, don’t expect anything profound here. It’s just that I’ve been working 10+ hours a day on deadlined material, and haven’t squeezed out the time to do proper blog entries for various news items. But Stuff has been turned in, so I finally have a chance to breathe!

So:

The woman on the cover of Mark of the Demon is not me. (Many people have asked.) I have no idea who the woman is. The artist who created that wonderful and awesome cover is Juliana Kolesova, so I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that it is either some acquaintance of hers or a model that she hired.

I’ve been asked to be a guest lecturer/instructor at the Writers Retreat Workshop next summer. I’m really stoked about this (and not just because it’s actually a paying gig!) It’s not a genre-only workshop, so I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for me to meet new people and get some insight into how authors outside of SF/F view the craft and the industry. And, I have to give mad props to my agent for dropping my name to the directors. Thanks, Matt! (He’s taught at the workshop in past years and recommended it highly.)

I’ll be in Calgary, AB (yeah, that would be in Canada) for World Fantasy Con at the end of the month. I’ll be arriving on Wednesday, Oct 29 and staying at the Hyatt, so if you want to say Hi, look for me in the usual places. (IOW, the bar.) I had put my name in the hat to be on programming, but since it’s two weeks out and I’ve heard nothing, I’m beginning to think that there will be no programming for me this time. Ah well. Worse things have happened.

I’m really tired of this persistent low-grade headache that’s been hanging on for several weeks now. Yeah, I’ve been to the doctor and have had the x-rays and the MRI. There are no pesky brain tumors or lurking aneurysms, however I do seem to have arthritic spurs in my neck. Arthritis. WTF is up with that? I’m in my early forties fer cryin’ out loud. OTOH, it gives me a good excuse to get frequent massages.

I turn 42 in less than a week. Y’know, I kinda like being in my forties. I finally feel like I know what the heck I’m doing.

If you emailed me and I never responded, please don’t think I just blew you off. I have a HORRIBLE habit of not responding to email immediately, which means that it then falls off my radar. If you sent me something to read or critique and I never responded, PLEASE give me a nudge. It doesn’t even have to be an excessively polite nudge (though I would prefer if you didn’t castigate me too terribly viciously.)

And finally: Congrats to Lindsay for finishing her extremely awesome YA urban fantasy! I’ve read it and it really rocks and I can’t wait for it to sell. She’s a terrific writer with a fantastic voice, so I don’t think it will take long!