Project!

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about or planning blog posts: they tend to be pretty spontaneous. Yesterday morning, though, I was sitting around thinking about blogging about short fiction generally, and the recent short fiction of Peter Beagle specifically. Beagle is a wonderful writer, but wasn’t really known for his short fiction until recently. Since early 2004 he’s written some amazing short stories, including a couple for me that I love a great deal. I was also aware that he had close to a dozen new stories coming this year, so it seemed timely.

Because I can’t help myself, I emailed his business manager to get a current bibliography. I couldn’t find one, and I thought I’d list all of his new fiction in my post. It also occurred to me that it’d be cool to have someone publish a treasury of his best short fiction, a 200,000 word collection covering the close to fifty years of his fiction writing career. So, I shot off an email to Bill at Subterranean Press, who I’ve worked with on a couple projects recently. I then pretty much forgot about it (family grabbed my attention).

Before I knew it, though, I’d heard back from Bill, he was in touch with Peter and his agent, details were discussed and so on. Less than 24 hours after pondering a blog post, I have now agreed to edit Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle. It will be published in October 2009 to coincide with the San Jose World Fantasy Convention, which I’ll be attending. I’m a bit breathless really. It’s exciting, and shows how some projects take a loooong time, and some just materialise out of thin air.

Updated

Well, Jessica and I went to visit Sophie and Marianne in the hospital.  I saw Sophie, who looks happy, full of energy, and very much ‘herself’ – she was even up and walking, if a touch unsteadily at times.  I spoke to her doctor, who has given her a clean bill of health cardiologically, neurologically etc.  They’re going to keep her in overnight tonight just in case – there’s an outside chance it may be some odd virus – but if she’s fine tomorrow, they’ll be home.  It’s hard to know for sure, but I think everything’s going to be fine.  Scary shit, this parenthood.

Sunday morning

Well, not much sleep last night.   Spoke to Marianne, who’s still at the hospital with Sophie.  They’ve done some tests, all of which were clear.  They think it could be some kind of virus, but don’t know yet. Sophie’s not been out of bed yet, so we’ll see how things are then.  Marianne should see the doctors in about two hours, and that should map out what next.  I spoke to Sophie too, who seems calm, in good spirits, and very much herself.  I don’t know if that makes it more or less worriesome.  Anyway, more as I hear it.

I am sitting here…

…quietly freaking out. My eldest daughter is fast asleep in bed. Marianne has taken our youngest, Sophie, to hospital to get checked out. She had a great day and was well and fine throughout, but about three quarters of an hour ago she came in complaining she had trouble standing up, she felt sore and weak. She had good limb strength and could sit up, didn’t have a temp, and seemed pretty bright and chirpy overall. She was just sore ‘all over’ and struggled to stand. It was weird so we rang medic alert, and decided she should get checked out. Given that Jessica was fast asleep, Marianne suggested one of us should go and the other stay home. Since she had taken Sophie to the doctor most regularly Marianne seemed the logical choice to drive her to the hospital. I am watching the clock, trying to work out when it will make sense to call Marianne. I am going crazier and crazier. I’m almost certain that everything is fine, but only almost. Parenthood.

Updated:

Spoke to Marianne.  They’ve seen the doctor and Sophie looks fine, except for being too weak to stand (chatty, happy, not in pain, good muscle strength, not dizzy etc), so he’s pretty puzzled.  He thinks it might be a virus, so they’re going to keep her in overnight for observation.   This is a good thing, I guess.  Hopefully it’ll prove to be nothing. The only thing that makes sense is sleep, I guess. It sounds like it’s going to be a long night and day till this is worked out.