I feel like I’m leading a freelancer’s life, without actually being a freelancer. Last week I sold a new anthology that I’m going to be co-editing with Gardner Dozois to publishers in the United States and Australia. It’s a project I’m really excited to be doing. I first came up with the idea back in about 1994 and now, at last, I’m going to get to do it, and it’s going to be BIG. It’s an all-original, and I’ll post details as they get finalised. This means that I’m now working on two different original science fiction anthologies, which is a whole other thing from doing reprints, and a real joy.
I also delivered Best Short Novels: 2005, which was an enormous relief. I don’t think I’d realised how stressed I’d been feeling till I hit the point where I wrote the last piece to go into the book, sealed it up, sent it off, and then just relaxed. It’s a book I love working on, so I’m hoping everyone will like it and that I’ll get to do it again. Actually, with that in mind, I should mention that ibooks will be reprinting Best Short Novels: 2004 sometime ’round October, I believe. They’re changing the title (I didn’t have any say in that), but it will be more generally available, which is neat.
Which takes us on to the next thing. I’ll be sending out something soon enough but, while I’m yet to contract to do any more year’s bests (the contracts always come later in the year), I’d encourage anyone who sees any short fiction to drop me an email or post something in the comments for the blog, and if you’re a writer and have a story coming out which isn’t in one of the major venues (i.e. SciFiction, Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, RoF or major online venues like Strange Horizons) please feel free to email me any stories you’d like me to see.
What else? I had an enjoyable, if exhausting weekend. I took Friday off work. It was a beautiful day, cool with blue skies. Marianne had her hair cut in the morning (the girls were at school), so I took the laptop and went and sat in one of Mt Lawley’s many fine cafe’s. Had breakfast, noodled around with the intro to Best Short Novels, then met up with M. We then went into the city, picked up a friend of ours, Garth, who was in town, and headed down to The Red Herring Restaurant in Fremantle. M & I had been there with Charles back in January, but it was much nicer for lunch. We sat, watched the ocean tides sweep up the Swan River, ate, drank and enjoyed ourselves. Saturday was catch up day, before heading out to see Bill Bryson in the evening, which was fun. We had drinks with Garth afterwards, and then home again to find that our new air conditioner had been under attack from well-intentioned but undertrained grandmas. For a moment things looked dire, but I think everything’s fine. Sunday was kids and stuff and now back to work. I’ve got about six proposals to write, a lot of paperwork, and this never ends.
I did have one realisation on the weekend, though. This freelance stuff is working out. It’s fun, and it’s making money. The business side gives me the heebee-geebees, but that apart, it’s good. If I could ever get to the point where I didn’t need a day job…
The good folk at the Science Fiction Book Club have just sent me the cover rough for the second volume of the ‘Best Short Novels’ anthology series. I think it’s very cool, very sci-fi, dark, and a bit of fun. Just as a reminder, the final table of contents for this volume, in running order, is: