Coming to Reno?

WorldCon 2011! Renovation - Reno, Nevada. Have you got your boots strapped on, your wallet tucked away, and your backpack loaded with books to get autographed? WorldCon is less than a month away.

I'll be there this year, after missing Australia (2010) and LA (2009). Looks like I have a good, solid program, too.

Panels:

Thu 1pm: Making It as a Full-time writer with Bud Sparhawk, Christina York, and Dean Wesley Smith

Thu 4pm: Writing Non-human Characters with Robert Sawyer and Martha Wells

Sat 1pm: Religion in Fantasy with Tim Powers and L.E. Modesitt

Readings:

Wed Aug 17 5pm at the Sierra View Library across the street.

Fri Aug 19 11:30am (The Daemon Prism, yes...)

Kaffeeklatches: sign up for a small-group session to ask whatever you want

Thu 3pm (don't leave me lonely!)

Sat 10am (don't know how I got two, but it should be fun!)

Autographing:

Fri 1pm (or any time you catch me, espcially if we can have a cuppa or a drink!)

My first SF convention was WorldCon in Chicago in the year 2000. I had never imagined so many people getting together to talk about books, movies, games, writing, science, costumes...anything and everything science fiction and fantasy related. There can be as many as 30 events going on at one hour. But as my agent told me at the time, science fiction conventions - especially WorldCon and the World Fantasy Convention are family reunions for the professional fantasy and science fiction worlds. Writers, agents, editors, critics, anthologists, and LOTS of readers attend. It is a great place to network and hang out with your favorite writers.

WorldCon is huge - well, I thought so until ComicCon soared into 100K+ territory. But I haven't ventured that one yet.

Come and join me in Reno!

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Where is Transformation?

Got a question today about why Transformation is not currently available new on Amazon.com. I asked my publisher the same thing just a few days ago. No, it is not out of print! It is just running low. Roc is watching how the release of the new trade paper version of Song of the Beast goes in October, before deciding whether to reprint Transformation in trade or mass market. Transformation is now in its 14th printing, which is pretty cool indeed.

Happily there are other places you can find new print copies!

It is still available new through barnesandnoble.com and at various stores through indiebound. Or you could call my dear friends Ron and Nina Else at Who Else Books at 303-744-BOOK (2665)and order one. They keep a good supply of my books and might even have one that's signed.

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The Daemon Prism - DONE!

This has been an intense year. I got a late start on The Daemon Prism, thanks to the previous intense year writing The Soul Mirror. Every time I got moving on TDP, I would get sidetracked by Soul Mirror revisions or copyedits or proof pages or postcards or whatever. And then holidays. By New Year's 2011 I felt I was barely started (well, ok, 40-50K words) but I certainly didn't have a good handle on the underlying themes of the books. Which meant I had exactly four months to finish the book, not to mention figuring out what it was about. So what did I do?



I completely immersed myself in the book. Every day I wrote until I made some kind of progress. My Exceptional Spouse took on all the other necessities. The dust piled up. The weeds grew taller. The house looked like sleeping beauty's wall of thorns. But late in March, I got up one morning and wrote a creation myth for Sabria's world. I realized that this piece of the Collegia Magica mystery stemmed from the fundamental truths of the world. By April 48th (deadline was end of April!) I turned in a raw, rowdy, oversized manuscript to my editor. After a week to catch my breath, I started revising. And on July 15 I sent in a finished, trimmed, coherent, and mostly polished manuscript. It was like...magic!
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