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Hey Wiscon32, that check was good!



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I joked with Greg Ketter from Dreamhaven that I should just have my agent send a portion of my royalties to him and save all concerned a good deal of time.

Just got back from Windy City Pulp and Paperback. I came home with:

• A signed edition of E. Hoffmann Price's stories collected in Far Lands Other Days (Vampire Earth fans have probably figured out I'm a fan) complete with a letter from his last editor(!!) written after Price's death. There's a staggering amount of words in the volume (and a bellydancer on the spine) with wonderful illustrations by George Evans of EC Comics fame. I could go on about Price for quite a while, but he had a very clean, energetic style, sort of a cross between R.E. Howard and Hemingway and a good eye for detail. If you're looking for a guy who lets precise nouns and vigorous verbs tell a story, Price is your guy.


• A signed Easton Press edition of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. There's a preface by Joan Vinge (who I see now and then at cons) and a new introduction written for the volume by Le Guin.


• A first edition of Watership Down only slightly spoiled by someone's damn "from the library of" bookplate. That's probably why it was on the 50% off rack where I was shopping. But screw it, a first edition is a first edition. Now I just have to figure out a way to get it signed.

More on Price. This is from his introduction, which I found amusing, but it'll give you some idea of the flavor of the man. Plus, editorial war stories are always fun:

Selling fiction is as odd, in its way, as is writing the suff.

When I came out of the Mexican jungle in 1935 and headed for W.K. Mashburn's home in Houston, he handed me a letter from my agent. "Slapdash Jigglebottom likes your novelette, the one you did to his order, but he'd like to have you make some changes . . ."

The schedule of changes was long as a whore's dream.

I wrote my agent, in effect, thus: "Tell him that for $100 he may put my name on the bly-line, and write the story himself-- that way it will be exactly what he wants. I will not have time to revise the yarn. Before I can get back home and to the work, they'll fire that silly bastard! You dig in and sell it, as is."

When I got back to my desk in Redwood City, there was a letter from my agent. In it was a check for that story. And he wrote, in his message, "You must be psychic. They fired Mr. Jigglebottom a couple days ago."

He goes on to praise several of his long-time editors.

I also love the final line, dated 1974. He's writing about how many of the tales were inspired by his travel experiences

Go with me, to Far Lands, some of which I have seen and loved. My Other Days go back to the kerosene lamp, homemade ice cream, and the hand powered manure fork . . .

True, women did wear long, long skirts -- but they didn't sleep in their clothes, Glory Be!

My dance card this week ended up being fuller than I thought. I've some meals planned with friends and then there's Windy City Pulp and Paperback. Hopefully I'll see John O'Neill from Black Gate and probably Jason from the Return of the Sword antho.

Also, I updated the blog header to add my appearance at InConJunction in Indianapolis over the 4th of July weekend.

Okay, here's my write up of the Martin panel on characterization. Well, it was about a lot of stuff but mostly characters and points of view.

Please, keep in mind that this is a rough transcript. The description of what was said is as accurate as I could make them typing on my laptop but I had to paraphrase here and there, therefore I'm not using any quotation marks. I'm sure I made errors. So don't write George R.R. Martin and say that you don't understand what he said or you think he screwed the pooch with his Gandalf observation unless you were actually there, m'kay? All errors of style are mine.

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Hope you found this helpful or at least illuminating.

You know, every now and then I just sit back and wonder how all this happened. I’m floored by how cool this is.

I wish someone had told me when I was fifteen, when no self-respecting female would speak to me and I lived in fear of the dreaded double jock lock after gym class, that I’d have this life. That I’d be married to a bellydancing librarian who says something interesting or thought-provoking daily. That people would pay otherwise perfectly good money to read my words or come hear me speak and it would be enough money to allow me to climb mountains in Costa Rica. That I’d chit-chat with guys in Vladivostok or Japan fighting their way through the English language or USAF majors in Europe or Puerto Ricans who I entertained enough so that they wrote me to ask a question because they want to test or verify a theory that they’ve formed about one of my stories. That I’d eat pizza sitting next to the same authors who I used to have open under my desk or concealed in a textbook during study hall. And that it would be a tax write-off.

I'm so lucky. Talk about a million-to-one shot.

Of course I worry. Howard Mohr in his book How To Talk Minnesotan: A visitor’s guide says that people from Minnesota don’t really enjoy good weather because they know it’ll have to be paid back eventually in snowstorms and tornados. There’s a bit of that in me too. I keep waiting to hear the fatal diagnosis from my doctor or my plane to go down. I just don’t see how this run can last. But I’m making an effort to enjoy it.

We're both kind of tired because we were up until like 3:30 last night which is a rarity for us these days. Good con. George R.R. Martin was great and I now have a signed first edition hardcover of A Game of Thrones. So that's going on the "don't mess with it without asking permission" shelf.

Also -- authors, learn by my experience! Have a hot, personable young woman running around the con talking up your books and you'll sell a lot more and people will actually show up for your readings (this has now been done twice, once by rhonawestbrook at MidSouthCon and now by Monica Valentinelli aka darkshiver). It really works. The Dreamhaven gal said she wished she'd brought down 10 copies of Dragon Champion and Way of the Wolf. People were running over to Borders to get them.

I'll try and post my summary of Martin's panel on character creation in the next couple of days.

ETA: I just counted -- we came home with 13 new books, not counting Martin or my author copy of the Return of the Sword anthology. Our friends Bill & Tracy took us to lunch and the "Last Square" game store. They have a very good military history section and I went a little bananas. As a shirt I saw at the con said -- "Who needs drugs? I can go broke buying books."

I think Chats summed it up best in the car on Sunday: "That was the schmoozinest, boozinest World Fantasy ever!"

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Had a great time. The hotel was great and the con staff was killer. Got so hot down there the Pursuit Special had part of a door seal come loose, so there I was, doing auto repairs in the parking lot this morning.

I don't know if you guys want all the mundane details, but I just want to point out a few highlights:

1. I wish I had more opportunities to mix with my long-term readers. I got to know a guy who's been on the VE forum since about day three and it was like hanging out with an old college pal.



2. Anyone with school-age children should make an effort to see the Lincoln Museum if they're ever in Illinois. It's worth the three hour drive from Chicago. I'm better than average when it comes to Lincoln trivia and Civil War factoids but I was learning something stunning every time I turned a corner. Plus all the waxworks and animatronics are fascinating, and not a few are emotionally moving. We went absolutely nuts in the giftshop afterwards; I wanted some disposable dollars supporting the place.



3. Extra special bonus was a tour of Wright's Dana-Thomas House in Springfield. Interesting to see what Wright could put together when doing a commission for a rich silver heiress.



4. I got some gaming in, GMing Savage Worlds. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. The players really got into the he-man Sgt. Rock-on-steroids sweats vibe (even Heather, the gal who was playing - she didn't even want either of the female characters, she ended up choosing the womanizing Cockney medic). And by the way, Aaron, you made an awesome CO. So yea!

I'll be at the Twilight Tales booth at Printer's Row this Saturday from 2-4. Drop by and get a book signed.

Back safe and sound. Tired and happy.

Saw some old friends. Hung out with a few fans, lj friends, and fellow writers. The fan base included a new one who tried WOLF last year (Hi George!) and completed his collection by buying the Age of Fire series over the weekend.

Got cool books and videos in the dealers room. No action figure purchases. We were also taken on a shopping trip to "The Last Square," Madison's incredible miniature/gaming store. Just as well I don't live in the area, or I'd be disposing of too much income there. I bought a print of a mounted Sioux warrior.

Most interesting conversation was with a librarian/archivist for NIU, my alma mater. She wants the Collected Papers of E.E. Knight. Okay, they're not collected, and they're mostly digital, but she's welcome to them. She and Chats got on like a blazing domicile. NIU's library is now a SFWA repository, bless it, and I'm happy to add to the collection, for the future use of the writer of the masters' thesis "How Did This Nimrod Ever Get Published? E.E. Knight and the Dark Fantasy Third Wave"

She's also got a first edition Hobbit from the late Thirties she's going to let me peruse. Awesome! I finally get to read the original version of "Riddles in the Dark."

Next year Oddcon is hosting George R.R. Martin!

What, meeting me isn't reason enough to attend? Well, there's more info for you here, ya philistines.

Here's the EEK/Chats schedule:

Place & Time	Panel
Gammon, Friday - 10:30 PM	Annual Midnight Horror Panel –How we have been affected by the Midnight Monster TV Movie of our youth
Oakbrook C, Saturday - 10:30 AM	For would-be writers: Common blunders that guarantee a manuscript gets rejected.
Oakbrook A&B, Saturday - 3:00 PM	The perennial OddCon World Building panel (I'm moderating, dammit!)
Gammon, Sunday 10:30AM	Wham! KaPow! Banff! Writers on Building Suspense and Showing Action
Meet Chats! Learn! Dance!
Place & Time	Panel
Oakbrook A&B, Saturday - 11:00 PM	Belly Dancing Demo
Gammon, Sunday - Noon	Tales from library: adventures in collecting SF/Comics/Fantasy

Thanks to MidSouthCon chats_noirs and I had another excellent time in Memphis. Also, we discovered an absolutely great Indian place, India Palace on Poplar at Evergreen (I think those are the cross-streets).

I had a very small but enthusiastic fan base show up in the form of rhonawestbrook and a couple of others. Rhona all by herself made it seem like there were 20 hot chick E.E. Knight fans at the con. Sold some books but unfortunately returned home with copies of everything.

Con hotel was jammed full of gamers, cosplay people and your typical scifi/fantasy types. There was a pretty cool Alien wandering around the hotel lobby. The awards banquet went well enough, until I got up to give my thank-you speech and totally blanked. All I could think about was Terry Pratchett and orangutans. Luckily it came back to me half way through and I ended it with a couple of yuks.

Chats put makeup on me so I didn't look too bad. Zombie author, if anything.

Doing a final round of line edits on Outcast. I'm off to Florida tomorrow and will finish them up there.

Today's pretty much prep for a very busy weekend, starting tomorrow night. Then I'm going to go get some sun at my folks' place in Florida next week, so I'll be posting sporadically. Frightful number of loose ends that need tying before we climb in the Pursuit Special for the drive south.

I can already taste the peanut-butter-and-nanna sandwiches at Graceland.

Got my ARCs for VALENTINE'S RESOLVE in the mail today. Must not worry about reviews!

Also trying to decide what to do about NASFiC. I was going to try and cut down on the conning thing this year and concentrate on improving my writing. But cons, especially ones with such rabid costume crazy fans as Archon, are just fun!

Short & sweet:

Saturday March 24 1-3PM Mass Signing
Sunday March 25 11 AM Reading
Sunday March 25 1 PM Dragon Panel

There are also Bellydance parties that I'm sure Chats will want to attend, I think they said those were going on both Friday and Saturday nights. And I'll be at the awards banquet.

Tomorrow I'm off to WindyCon to participate in Richard Chwedyk's writer's workshop. I believe this is the fourth year in a row I've done it with him. Richard's a fine guy -- gentleman is not even the word, a Nebula winner, and a bit of a jack-of-all-trades at the writing game. This time we're reviewing novel segments from two entrants. I'll be matched up with Bill Fawcett and Jean Rabe to rake a couple of poor suckers over the coals.

Just part of paying it forward. On the forty year installment plan.

Here's where you can find me at ARCHON Oct 6-8.

Fri, 2:00pm HI - Monroe Reading - "Dragon Avenger"
Sat, 1:00pm GC - LaSalle Lobby Autographs (1/2 hour)
Sat, 5:00pm GC - Ballroom D5 He's in the Bar - The importance of the tavern in science fiction and fantasy
Sat, 7:00pm GC - Marquette A Old Wives Tales & Urban Legends
Sun, Noon GC - Marquette A A Little Romance

The tavern panel will be fun. It will be the first panel I've shared with gamer, gadabout, editor, co-author, consigliere (wartime and otherwise), and friend Howard Andrew Jones.

The Windy City Pulp and Paperback convention is this weekend. I'll go at least one of the days, not sure which, though. Howard, friend and occasional writing partner, is coming up for it, so I'll probably wander around it with him.

Chats has been dabbling on myspace in servitude of dance stuff. I suppose I'll have to get an account sooner or later. One more thing to keep updated, somehow.

Painting ceilings and trip at the condo. The prep work took forever, the job's going to be simple compared to moving furniture, prepping, laying down tape and so on. People complaining about the cost of gas haven't bought a gallon of flat white ceiling paint lately.