Let me tell you how emotionally drained I have become of late, how perilously close to total burn out that I am.  I am listening to old Dr Hook songs for laughs. No. Seriously. I really think that puts it in context, yes?

The weekend is upon us and I’m diving into the finishing touches for Eclipse Three which must be finished very, very soon. That means sitting down and writing the introduction (have I told you how I dislike writing anthology introductions?) and the author notes for the book. It also means doing the line edits and formatting.  How am I going? Well, if I had to, I could hand in the book tomorrow. I’m not going to because someone who is totally worth waiting for is supposed to get me a story any second now. I’m also vacilating on some legal / copyright  stuff that I’m discussing with the publisher which, frankly, has me very worried. We’re too small to get a lawyer to check things, so we’re trying to be as careful as we can.

Other than that, I’m now less than three weeks away from a plane to Sydney.  I’m developing pre-trip tunnel vision. I know what I need to get done before I go, and I’m parsing the tasks to be sure they’re completed.  I’m also checking budgets, balancing this and that, and all in all going nuts. I’ll be cool though.

I also got a new PC this week. Big, fast and beautiful which frankly runs like a complete piece of crap.  Beautiful screen. Great TV reception.  Can’t run spellcheck in Word without dying. This is not the time I need to be messing with such things. sigh.  I’ll remember for next time.  More soon!

Just delivered the manuscript of Walter Jon Williams’ new collection, The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories, to the publisher Night Shade Books. It’s a peach of a book.  The best of Walter’s recent stories, which are some of the best he’s written in his career and some of the best to appear anywhere of late, alongside an introduction by Charles Stross and some terrific afterwords from Walter.  All in all, a topnotch book, and one I’m proud to have edited. Look for it early next year!

Today I’m working on the day job at the office in West Perth, trying to get a business plan down on paper for a new project.  It’s for a new version of a project that I’ve been involved with for more than twelve years, and considerable emotional fatigue has set it on the subject. Still, ever onwards. It is, as I’m wont to say, a bear hunt.

We’re in the first week of school holidays here, which means chaos at home, a stressed wife, and kids who are just a little crazy. Every afternoon this week has been a mild form of madness, which seems to be ensuring I don’t get much done when I get home. That wouldn’t be a problem, were it not for the fact that I need to deliver Eclipse Three in three weeks (still waiting on one [!] story) and need to get it finished. I also want to get the special issue of Subterranean finished by then too, but realistically Eclipse is the only thing I have to get done. Hopefully it’ll work out (it should).  Oh, I’ve seen a rough of the cover for Eclipse Three. It’s by Richard Powers and its very ‘Sixties’, very cool. I’ll post it and the table of contents here when it’s done.

Speaking of Eclipse Three, Nnedi Okorafor has a wonderful story in the book. She also has some great news. She’s going to be writing a Disney Fairies book!  Yay! There are a million reasons this is great, but one of them is that a terrific writer whose work I admire is going to write something that my two girls will be thrilled to read.  Can’t wait for Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frogs!

Malcolm Gladwell (of Blink, The Tipping Point etc) reviews Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price at The New Yorker. It’s an interesting review, if only because it questions the almost evangelically-expressed view that ‘information wants to be free’.

Well, back to listening to old Church and Simon & Garfunkel tracks while trying to work out critical timelines on this project. More soon!

Well, I guess I can stop faffing around about my bookings for the US. I’ve just made all the changes that I’m going to make.  I’m now arriving in sunny San Francisco a day earlier, which gives me a couple days with Charles (and the gang). This is the current plan:

Fri 31 Jul: Fly from Perth to Sydney. Spend time with Nick and Ade, and maybe see other Sydney-siders
Sat 1 Aug: Fly from Sydney to San Francisco. Get in around noon and crash at Charles’ place!
Tues 4 Aug: Fly from San Francisco to Montreal. I’ll probably crash at Ellen’s place the night before. We’re traveling together and it should be fun (even if it is a very rare non-Locus trip)
Tues 11 Aug:Fly from Montreal to San Francisco. Spend night at Charles’ place.
Wed 12 Aug: Fly from San Francisco to Melbourne.  Time to go that Melbourne convention I keep meaning to buy a membership to.
Mon 17 Aug: Fly from Melbourne to Perth. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

I’ve given up some time in Sydney, but hopefully I’ll see most people in Melbourne on the return leg of the trip. Otherwise, if you’d like to get together email me!  I’d like to see you.

Over at the Locus blog, an invitation to express your thoughts on the likely table of contents for The Best of Fritz Leiber.  Come on and join in. It’s your chance to influence what might or might not go into the final book.