Man, I am lucky.

That’s the only way I can figure out how I got to spend last week the way I did. If I hadn’t gone to last year’s World Fantasy Convention, if I hadn’t wound up sharing a room with Daryl Gregory, if I hadn’t gone room-hopping with everyone, I would have been at home, watching the kid practice her back-to-front rolls and not get enough sleep.

Instead, all those things happened, so I got to kick around Flagstaff, Arizona with ten talented, funny people, watching Charlie The Unicorn and not getting enough sleep.

I met Sarah K. Castle at WFC, and we got to talking about writing and what we were working on (me, Windswept; her, a science fiction thriller about a world-spanning EPA with teeth, which I said she should market as SCIENCE NINJAS. She demurred). I made a friend, which is always a nice thing to do at conventions, and I also wound up getting invited to Starry Heaven, a novel-writing workshop based on the Blue Heaven workshop that Charles Coleman Finlay created.

The format works like this: every participant submits the first fifty pages of the novel they want to workshop. Everyone reads every first fifty, then chooses two full novels to read. Then everyone goes to Flagstaff (Sarah’s stomping grounds), where you eat, drink, and critique. The first three days are group sessions where we deliver critiques of the first fifties, four a day. The rest of the workshop, we split into groups of three to deliver the full critiques. It was a lot of work, but when you’ve got good material and good people, it doesn’t feel like it.

Sarah’s invite came at a real low point in my writing career (though that doesn’t feel like the right word. Writing apprenticeship? Writing gestation? Writing sitting-on-my-can-trying-to-fill-the-page-with-text time?), and the workshop was just the kick in the ass I needed. I got to read YA, horror (both urban and smaller urban), fantasy, SF, all of it great. There will be some excellent books coming out of this workshop, and I hope that mine will be one of them (or, at least, it’ll be better than it has been before). Fortunately, I got a lot of excellent input from everyone, especially my two full readers, Brad Beaulieu and William Shunn. This next draft won’t be a breeze, but the path to completion looks a lot brighter, thanks to Brad and Bill’s signposts.

So, time to get back to work. But first, I have to go change a diaper. Ah, the glorious writer’s life…

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance,Scribbling,Windswept






    

Ozark Pudding

1 egg
2 T flour
1/8 t salt
1 apple, diced and peeled
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 c nuts, broken
1 t vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar until smooth. Add flour, powder, salt. Add nuts, apple, vanilla. Bake in 8″ buttered pie tin 35 min at 350. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Serves 3-4.

Note: we triple this recipe for a 9×13 pan, but do not triple the sugar.

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance






    

When I was in high school, I was at Wendy Grace’s house watching “The Commitments” with a group of friends. At some point, for some reason that I couldn’t identify then and sure as hell couldn’t now, my friend, Rob, and I started laughing and could not stop.

(Note for clarification: we were not on drugs of any kind. I feel it’s important to state that for the record. We were so squeaky-clean that you could’ve served a banquet for the Queen on our souls. Not that you’d want to, ’cause, dude, that would make for a really crowded table.)

One of us would slow down to catch his breath, look at the other, then start all over again. We reinforced each other in a positive feedback loop that had us laughing so hard that it hurt. Tears streamed down our faces, our stomachs hurt from doubling over, but we could not stop, not even if we wanted.

Last night, at w00tstock, it was just like being in Wendy Grace’s living room, except instead of Rob, there were three hundred geeks, and, instead of “The Commitments,” there was the greatest line-up of nerd music, movies and comedy this world has ever seen. And I just made my Saving Throw vs. Hyperbole, so that’s totally for reals. My sides still ache from laughing.

(more…)

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance






    

If you were a member of the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver last year, or if you’re a member of the Montreal version this year, you can nominate stuff for the Hugos. Did you know this? I sure as hell didn’t the first time I went to a Worldcon, probably because I was more concerned with avoiding the outrageous parking fees at the Anaheim Convention Center than voting and nominating and such.

Ever since, I’ve tried to get the people I know on the ballot, for both the quality of their work and the novelty of saying, “Hey, I know that name!” It hasn’t worked out as well as I’ve hoped, but no one said World Domination was easy. That’s why I hope this little nugget will spread from my site to Facebook and Twitter and beyond. You gotta start somewhere.

So, if you can nominate stuff for the Hugos, please take a look at these works. If you like them, please tell people about them. And if you really like them, please nominate them.

Best Novel: “Pandemonium,” by Daryl Gregory. Del Rey, August 2008.

Best Novella: “Far Horizon,” by Jason Stoddard. Interzone #214.

Best Novelette: “The Right People,” by Adam Rakunas (hey, I know that name!). Futurismic, October 2008.

Best Novelette: “The Elephant Ironclads,” by Jason Stoddard. The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Del Rey, April 2008.

Best Short Story: “Willpower,” by Jason Stoddard. Futurismic, December 2008.

Best Short Story: “Living with Creely,” Andrew Tisbert. Rosebud #41.

Best Short Story: “Tetris Dooms Itself,” by Meghan McCarron. Clarkesworld #23, August 2008.

Best Short Story: “Random Acts of Cosmic Whimsey,” by Jetse de Vries. Flurb #6.

Filed under: Fiction,Other People's Brilliance,Real Stories

Tags: hugos anticipation worldcon
Tags: hugos anticipation worldcon



    

Up

I’ve only done two crosses, and neither of them had mud. I think I’ve been missing something.

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance,Outside






    

Chad Orzel is trying to raise money for science teachers across America. As a former physics student, I can get behind that. Please consider dropping a ducat in his bucket.

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance






    

(Cross-posted at Science Fiction LA. Just ’cause.)

So, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction gave away free review copies to the first twenty people who asked and said they’d write about it. I asked, I got it (and thank you!), I’m writing about it.

1) I was very glad to see that F&SF was sending out these free review copies to average people. Jason Stoddard and I are always yelling that the best way to market good products is to give free samples to loudmouths and encourage them to talk things up. F&SF’s target audience is packed with loudmouths, so they just have to find ‘em and let ‘em go to town. I hope they’ll start pushing copies on io9, SFSignal, and maybe shove a few at Wil Wheaton and John Scalzi.

2) The edition I got did not make me want it. Warren Ellis’s words that magazines are objects that are designed to be wanted ring in my brain every time I see a new rag on the shelf. Anything with the words “fantasy” and “science fiction” will get my attention, but, man, if you want me to part with cash for your words, the container for those words had better kick me in the back of the head.

3) Three stand-out stories gave me that blessed skull-thumping feeling: Geoff Ryman’s “Days of Wonder,” Albert E. Cowdrey’s “Inside Story,” and M. Rickert’s “Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account.” Rickert’s story, about a future where women who had abortions are capital criminals, scared the crap out of me and got even scarier the more I heard from Sarah Palin.

4) My one complaint (because what kind of blogger would I be unless I complained about something?) is this: everyone in this edition has been published in F&SF before (though if I’m misremembering, I’m happy to print a correction). A double issue would have been a perfect opportunity to rescue someone from the slush pile and introduce a new writer to F&SF’s audience. And I don’t just say this as a collector of rejection slips; I say this as someone who loves new stuff. Give us new authors, guys! Give ‘em a lower rate and put ‘em on your website instead of in print! Make little story origami to hand out at conventions! Make a widget that has nothing but newbs! You can make the Internets work for you, and New And Shiny is the Internets’ currency. Just sayin’.

Filed under: Other People's Brilliance