It was a busy day. The sand is pouring through the hourglass. By this time tomorrow I’ll be on holidays. In just over a week I’ll be in California. Do you want to see me while I’m there, or in Denver – email me. I’d love to catch up.
I’m tired. Another long day, but I wanted to check in with you fun internet kids, just to keep you up to date on the world. I’ve calmed down and am quietly preparing for my interview on Friday. I’m taking solace in the fact that I’ll be on holidays in less than 48 hrs. I’m not googling ‘symptoms +’ to find out what the pain in my chest is – most likely it’s a strained muscle between two ribs, and I’ll know that for sure come Saturday when I see the doctor. I’m not editing this month’s Locus columns yet, either. That can wait till the weekend. I also should have some project news round then too.
So, what am I doing? Well, I’m reading Jay Lake’s Escapement, which is swell. I think Jay is getting better and better as a writer, and this is his best book length work yet. I am wondering how changing around from one type of book to another will affect his profile with readers, but I am seriously interested in reading Green. I’m also reading Ken Scholes’ collection. This guy is not so well known right now, but I think he will be. In between reading those, I’m just now beginning to work my way through the collected short fiction of Peter Beagle so that I’ll be ready to do his ‘Best of’. It’s a fun task to be faced with.
Oh, and I’ve been meaning to comment on the launch of Tor.com. I drafted and redrafted something that commented on the mini-blogstorm that showed up, and then realised it wasn’t necessary. I like the site. It’s not a killer app for SF folk, but then I don’t think it was ever intended to be and I’m not sure we live in the age of killer apps anymore. What it is, though, is an interesting blog site with good fiction. I wish they published more fiction (Patrick Nielsen Hayden edited the only original antho series of the past 20 years that I wish I’d edited – Starlight – so his editing more short fiction is very welcome news to me), and I wish they organised the blog posts regularly, but I’m very happy it exists, will be checking it regularly, and would recommend it to you. It’s at www.tor.com.
Well, I’ve got myself completely running in circles. As I mentioned earlier, I am applying for a job that is very closely related to my own, and which I pretty much acted in for about ten months. I want the job, but I’ve been out of the interview cycle for about 15 years. I’ve been waiting to hear about interview times, and it looks like it’ll be early Friday afternoon this week, just before I go on leave. For reasons I don’t think I should go into online, this has completely done my head in. For no rational reason whatsoever I’d been hoping to avoid the interview, and now it’s just four days away (a little less actually). I got myself so turned around that I seriously considered withdrawing and am just generally unhappy about the thing (though that’s me, not anything to do with the job). Expect me to be pretty much unavailable through till the weekend as I try to focus on preparation and such. sigh,
I’m slowly accepting that I’m just not going to post here regularly, which is frustrating. Someone said somewhere else in the blogosphere of late that you should decide what kind of web presence you’re going to have then stick to it. Mine seems to be intermittent, semi-sfnal, semi-personal. I’d like it to be different, but I can’t settle on what to write about. I’ve fired up the blog several times in the past week and not written anything. I was going to tell you about the relatives visiting (nice), Jessica’s seizure while we were in Dunsborough (scary but ok), Dr Horrible’s Musical Blog (fun), starting Jay’s Escapement and Paul’s The Quiet War, but I’m just not getting to it. I’m not going to promise to try to do better, because I probably won’t. There will be some increase in blogging next week. I’m in the office this week, and have the dreaded job interview on Friday. I’m then on holidays for a week, when I’ll basically be reading and getting ready for the trip to Oakland and Denver. I’ll probably blog then, and in the early days of the trip. Experience suggests that I will mean to blog every day of the Con, but won’t. I’ve then got a day in Oakland, and home for eight weeks R&R during which I’ll do the copyedits for Eclipse 2 and Godlike Machines, and finish the year’s best. Busy times.
Niall Harrison, over at Vector, reviews The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Vol. 2, and manages the thoroughly admirable feat of making me look much smarter than I actually am, which is very edifying. You should check it out. Warning: It’s a long review, but very interesting.