…are beginning to leak out. From what I hear, it sounds like the committee must be going through the advising nominees phase of things. Congrats to one and all. I’ll be interested to see a full list when it’s available.

…are beginning to leak out. From what I hear, it sounds like the committee must be going through the advising nominees phase of things. Congrats to one and all. I’ll be interested to see a full list when it’s available.

I recently became concerned that the blog was sounding a little bit overly self-involved. Too much about me and what I’m doing and what I’m feeling about it. Then I had a very, very, very small epiphany – an epiphanette if you will. It’s my blog. Of course it’s bloody self-involved. What else would it be?

Just re-read Alex Irvine’s “Golems of Detroit” from the May F&SF. I’ll post something intelligent about it later, but it’s a good story and the novel that it comes from looks to be a real winner (The Narrows, due in late ’05). I also just read a new Kelly Link story, “Some Zombie Contingency Plans”. I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved this story. There are stories that come along every now and then, and they make me wish I could build an anthology just to house them. They excite me as a reader, an editor, a publisher. I loved the story – it’s due out in Kelly’s new collection – and you should check it out as soon as you can.

Writing is hard enough without adding stupid limitations to the process. Or at least, that’s how it seems to me as a bystander. For that reason, I’m a little bit skeptical about Nature magazine’s series of short-shorts, ‘Futures’. Surely a writer has enough to cope with, without trying to squeeze his story into a few hundred words. That said, some have done it extraordinarily well. The magazine has offered up six stories so far. Of these, I think the McIntyre is particularly good and well worth checking out.

• Ian Stewart, “Play it again, Psam“
• Stephen Baxter, “Under martian ice“
• Ken Macleod, “Undead again“
• Penelope Kim Crowther, “The party’s over“
• Vonda N. McIntyre, “A modest proposal… for the perfection of nature“
• Norman Spinrad, “A Man of the Theatre“

Let me tell you what’s happened and what I’ve learned, nigh on these past five years or so. I flew to Staten Island in New York in January of 1999 to get married. It took a while, but in May of 1999 we got past the immigration hassles and Marianne moved to Australia. Jessica, my first daughter, was born in June of 2000. At that time, I had a normal day job, an ok house that we rented, and I wrote a regular book review column and did some proofreading for Locus. I had no real aspirations to make reviewing or editing my day job (and still don’t), or even to devote a lot more time to either pursuit.

Somehow, with expressly planning it, things changed. We now own a nice home (well, a percentage of it), have two children, and I have edited six anthologies in the past two years, sold two more, review occasionally, proofread and am Locus’s reviews editor. All of these things are good things, let me assure you. The only legitimate complaint I have is that 24 hours in a day just isn’t enough.

But, I was talking about what I’d learnt in the intervening five years. Mostly what I’ve learned is how little I know and how little I understand about why I do things. I’ve discovered I can sell a book to a publisher, which is a surprising thing. I’ve discovered I can edit a reasonable book, which is something that still me. I’m still working out why I’m doing it, though. I enjoy it, get a real thrill when it goes well, so that’s part of it. I also love science fiction, fantasy and such, so that’s comes into the mix. And I love short stories, which helps. But I don’t have an agenda, which I think I probably should. I don’t strongly prefer one kind of non-realist (for want of a better term) fiction over another. And I’m appalled by how little I know about the business side of editing and publishing anthologies. I don’t know that much about sales figures and publishers inside processes and all of those things. Something to work on.

On reflection, most of what I do is instinctive, unconsidered. I mean, right now, I have this incredible urge to do an original fantasy anthology that’s running round in mind. I can’t stop thinking about it, even though it’s a very incoherent notion right now. Need to work on it. Enough rambling for the moment.

Oh, and thanks to those who have posted in the comments section so far. I’ll reply a little later, but I appreciate your taking the time.