Paksworld

Yesterday I  did myself an injury.   Tripped and went down hard, bled  all over a sidewalk, and spent hours in an ER  before I was finally sent home with a goodly number of stitches in my face and a bunch of related bruises, scrapes and cuts.  My only pair of bifocals was pretty much destroyed so I’m having to type w/o being able to see the screen clearly.  Renewed awareness of how much misery you can feel when not actuallly badly hurt.  And how lucky you can be when a bloody mess of a face does not involve any broken bones, lost teeth, damage to eyes, ears, mobility, etc.   Functually, stuff is working.  Yeah, I’m stiff, sore, and the worst parts of the face hurt some, but ye gods it could have been worse.  It will be ouchy for some days, we hope the stitches stay put for ten days, and  so on, but once I was stitched back together, the worst is the effect on those who see it.  I look like someone who was punched hard and more than once in the face (due to managing to hit most of my face in one fall.  The nose is a particular gruesome vision.

The only picture I have (the hospital took more, before the stitching, to plan the reconstruction)  is on my phone and I don’t know how to get itt from there to, say, a horror to show my friends.  Saves them wincing, as long as they don’t come visit.   As with all things that happen to writers, it’s *material*…at some point, details will show up in something I write.  Wonderful husband made me pudding (soft  custard) to eat last nigit annd today since I’m not supposed to chew anything firm for some days lest I dislodge a stitch beforetime.  Now I’m going to try soft scrambled eggs…without being able to see when they’re done.

There’s a move in sword & buckler fighting known as “giving him mustachios with the buckler”  and I can now say I have a clue what that feels like.  A pebbled concrete sidewalk makes a good “buckler.”

Editor has accepted the manuscript of INTO THE FIRE (after the second rewrite) and it’s now in production.  Once the copy edits have come and gone, I’m off the contractual hook, so to speak, with the time to arrange for the medical and dental procedures I need.   Whew!   Because an eye with a cataract in it does not get better on its own, nor does a dental situation.

DragonCon was fun but challenging, as the throat injury was still causing discomfort and some loss of voice strength, and the knee injury didn’t allow the kind of fast, steady walking that going from hotel to hotel makes much easier.  OTOH, I made it, so there.

Renovation on the house next door that we bought to rent has gone well, and it’s now time for the flooring crew to put in the new floors.  Then installation of appliances, final plumber visits and electrical visits, and it’ll be about ready to go.  In the meantime I need to have a talk with our lawyer about “being a landlord of residential property.”  The basics; I’ve never done this before.

Shifting attention from hurricane (since it’s moving away from us) without shifting attention from needs of those still being affected, and soon to be affected, by its continuing capacity for destruction, I’m starting the final prep for DragonCon.  I won’t be online as much; I have a lot to do each day I have left.  Thanks for all your good wishes and prayers; please keep those really suffering in this mess in the same good wishes and prayers.   (And the sun just came out–actual sun on the ground and real shadows for the first time since, um…late last week.)

Gotta run.  There’s a bit longer post over on Universes.

I’m offering two Tuckerizations at the Dragon*Con Charity Auction, since I don’t have a new book out this year.

One is a character placement in one (probably the one I’m just finishing) of the two Vatta related books on contract.  The other is a character placement in a Paksworld story, one that will either come out in an anthology or be published in another collection  of Paksworld fiction.   If there’s room in my suitcase, I might tuck in a couple of audiobooks as well, but no promises on that.   The Vatta story character will necessarily be a minor character in the book; the Paksworld story character may be more central (depends on the story.)

My final Dragon*Con schedule, as of yesterday.    I have an hour reading slot on Friday at 5:30 pm (a time when, frankly, I don’t expect many people to show up.   Sensible people will be eating an early supper.   Gratitude will be abundant for those who do show.  Surprise me by stuffing the room with avid fans and something amazing may happen. )

For anyone interested, since I don’t have a new book out this year,  my donations to the charity auction will be Tuckerizations (you get to be a character in something), one for an appearance in a Vatta book, and one for an appearance in a Paksworld story to be published (eventually) as part of a collection.   More details available at the convention.

For the rest of the schedule, read on…

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It’s not all negative.  I had a great time at Dragon-Con,  the con-crud is not (so far) really bad, and the bad writing was/is hilarious.    I don’t trash other peoples’ books in public, so I won’t tell you who wrote this gasper, only that it’s not in SF/F (I indulged my interest in another genre).   I won’t even quote it because someone lurking here would undoubtedly run it through a search engine and figure it out, after which someone (maybe a different someone) would hasten to tell the author that I trashed the book, and the author’s fans would then come hurtling down on me, and those who like internet fights would sit around cheering.  I  have a better idea.

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I have my tentative schedule for DragonCon posted on Live Journal  (if I can quit typing LiverJournal!  Darn the new glasses.)  It’s tentative, and I’ve asked for a reading slot and a signing slot as well…if I get them, those will show up in my final schedule.   I have just been told that Ebola patients are being shipped to the CDC in Atlanta.  One hopes not on commercial airlines coming into Hart International, because that place is sufficiently full of incoming con crud already.

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First US printing of Crown of Renewal  in hardcover is 12,000 copies.  WOW!   Should be plenty available from most places.   (I have no idea if all 12,000 selling in the first week would get me to a spot on the NYT list, but it couldn’t hurt.    However, with the cost of hardcovers these days and the general economy,  that’s not going to happen.   Absolutely no dark looks cast at anyone who’s waiting for their library to get a copy, or who will wait for the paperback.    Not into guilt-laying my readers!)   Editor let me know that today. She also reported checking on a potential situation with Amazon that appears not to affect Crown (at least not so far) but had affected other writers’ books (heard about it on a closed list, and let her know that, as well as the Book World problem Hawkman mentioned here.   Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back today.  Had two good writing days on trains (2000+ words each day) after a brief conference with Editor at the convention.     As usual, time away from a project allows more balanced contemplation of what’s already been done.     I realized, for instance, that a pivotal scene I’d been thinking about for months had never actually made it into the computer–an extreme case of “I know that, but I didn’t show that.”

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Yes, there will be a contest for an ARC of Echoes of Betrayal.   I haven’t decided just what it will be, but it will be.   I enjoyed last year’s “invite a character to dinner” contest and hope you did, too.   I won’t have a contest topic until after the next trip, so this is just a heads-up.

Husband is recovering well enough that I’m definitely heading for DragonCon week after next…by train, which means leaving on Monday the 29th.    (This is because the Sunset Limited–the train I’ll take from San Antonio to New Orleans, runs each direction on alternate days.  However, this gives me a chance to have a quiet morning in Atlanta before Registration opens Thursday afternoon.)

I will be meeting Editor there for a working breakfast, and also Former Editors (both Baen and Del Rey)  on a panel, so it should be productive.  I hope to meet some of you there, though I know some of you were unable to come.   Next year I’ll miss  DragonCon as I definitely plan to attend WorldCon in Chicago and it’s on the same weekend.    (Well, yeah, I could charter a jet and take one day off Chicon to fly to Atlanta and back…if I won the lottery…but practically speaking….no.)  The advantage of Chicon 7 is that I don’t have to change trains (large smile here.)

At any rate…suggestions for contests are welcome, though I won’t promise to use any.   (Isn’t that just like a writer!?)