Earlier this month I mentioned that I was heading in for some long overdue checkup with the doctor. Many of you have been following my progress on Twitter. I’m a firm believer in paying it forward and that includes being open and honest about sensitive topics. Forewarned is forearmed.
I used to think I was a superhero. A rotund, pasty, privileged superhero, but superhero none the less. I’ve held jobs more or less consistently since the time I was twelve. How much I work became a running joke among my friends. I abused my body with unhealthy amounts of caffeine to squeeze more work hours out of each day, and I did this for years without much of a break.
Last year when my Dad needed surgery, we packed up our dog and cat show and headed north to take care of him. I worked my forty plus, ran errands, made sure doctors appointments were made and kept, and did the occasional shuffle from Tomahawk, WI to Minneapolis, MN for check-ups with the surgeons. Three months later, Dad was healed up and I was falling apart, freshly diagnosed with at least one pinched nerve and Diabetes.
My body had been trying to tell me something and I finally had to stop and listen. “Only human.”
Tomorrow I’m heading back to Illinois. There’s one more post-divorce court date to attend to. More importantly, I’m *cough* getting to that age when it’s prudent to get ones pipes cleaned and tubes checked. I can’t ignore the aches, pains and lumps any longer. The doctor awaits my arrival Monday morning and there I’ll stay until we get things fixed.
I have a lot of things to look forward to: an awesome wife and best friend, adventures living in a new country, writing. Who knows, maybe kids will be in our cards, too. I need to be as healthy as I can so I can enjoy that life.
Via The Hugo Awards:
Best Novel
(699 Ballots)
* Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
* The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
* Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
* Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
* Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
* The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
Both Boneshaker and Palimpsest are in my to-read pile and I can’t wait to get my hands on The Windup Girl.
Best Novella
(375 Ballots)
* “Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
* The God Engines, John Scalzi (Subterranean)
* “Palimpsest”, Charles Stross (Wireless)
* Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon)
* “Vishnu at the Cat Circus”, Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days)
* The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
Best Novelette
(402 Ballots)
* “Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (
Tor.com 3/09)
* The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
* “It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
* “One of Our Bastards is Missing”, Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three)
* “Overtime”, Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
* “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”, Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)Best Short Story (432 Ballots)
* “The Bride of Frankenstein”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
* “Bridesicle”, Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
* “The Moment”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints)
* “Non-Zero Probabilities”, N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
* “Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)
This is the category I love the most. As always, I will be rooting for Kij to win but Jim Gunn alumni Lawrence Schoen will also be cheered for.
Best Related Book
(259 Ballots)
* Canary Fever: Reviews, John Clute (Beccon)
* Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
* The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
* On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
* The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
* This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)
Best Graphic Story
(221 Ballots)
* Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
* Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)
* Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
* Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
* Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler
Batman vs. Girl Genius. I’d have a hard time picking which to vote for. I’ve enjoyed Fables but I’m several volumes behind.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
(541 Ballots)
* Avatar Screenplay and Directed by James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
* District 9 Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell; Directed by Neill Blomkamp (TriStar Pictures)
* Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
* Star Trek Screenplay by Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Directed by J.J. Abrams (Paramount)
* Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter; Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, & Thomas McCarthy; Directed by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar)
Can you believe I haven’t seen a single one of these? I know, bad fen. The past couple years haven’t included much of an entertainment budget.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
(282 Ballots)
* Doctor Who: “The Next Doctor” Written by Russell T Davies; Directed by Andy Goddard (BBC Wales)
* Doctor Who: “Planet of the Dead” Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts; Directed by James Strong (BBC Wales)
* Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars” Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
* Dollhouse: “Epitaph 1″ Story by Joss Whedon; Written by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (Mutant Enemy)
* FlashForward: “No More Good Days” Written by Brannon Braga & David S. Goyer; Directed by David S. Goyer; based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer (ABC)
Epitaph 1, hands down. This was the Dollhouse episode that took everyone straddling the fence and sent the reeling into the fanboy camp.
Best Editor, Long Form
(289 Ballots)
* Lou Anders
* Ginjer Buchanan
* Liz Gorinsky
* Patrick Nielsen Hayden
* Juliet Ulman
Best Editor, Short Form
(419 Ballots)
* Ellen Datlow
* Stanley Schmidt
* Jonathan Strahan
* Gordon Van Gelder
* Sheila Williams
This is an extraordinarily difficult category to choose just one person from; all are awesome editors. I’m also disappointed John Joseph Adams didn’t make the list. I’ll be interested to see how the votes stacked up.
Best Professional Artist
(327 Ballots)
* Bob Eggleton
* Stephan Martiniere
* John Picacio
* Daniel Dos Santos
* Shaun Tan
Best Semiprozine
(377 Ballots)
* Ansible edited by David Langford
* Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
* Interzone edited by Andy Cox
* Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
* Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal
Best Fan Writer
(319 Ballots)
* Claire Brialey
* Christopher J Garcia
* James Nicoll
* Lloyd Penney
* Frederik Pohl
Go Fred! First Fan Writer nomination at 90, and damn well deserved.
Best Fanzine
(298 Ballots)
* Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
* Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
* CHALLENGER edited by Guy H. Lillian III
* Drink Tank edited by Christopher J Garcia, with guest editor James Bacon
* File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
* StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith
Best Fan Artist
(199 Ballots)
* Brad W. Foster
* Dave Howell
* Sue Mason
* Steve Stiles
* Taral Wayne
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
(356 Ballots)
* Saladin Ahmed
* Gail Carriger
* Felix Gilman *
* Seanan McGuire
* Lezli Robyn *
*(Second year of eligibility)
All in all a positively awesome Hugo line up. Congratulations to all of the nominees and consolations to those that missed the cut off.
I was updating my submission tracker on Duotrope this morning, after receiving a rejection from Writers of the Future. I was tweeting about the rejection when I had a slight epiphany. I realized how cool it would be if Duotrope had Twitter integration. They don’t, and as I discovered, neither do they have any presence on Twitter. I decided then and there that something must be done to correct this oversight.
After an hour or two of hacking, in between a heated battle between myself and my XBox, I finished today’s secret project: the unofficial Duotrope Twitterfeed.
Why did I do this? Well, all too often I come across writers who have never heard of Duotrope. I know, right? Twitter is a good way to boost the signal. I also am nerdy enough that I like seeing what’s changing in the fiction landscape on a regular basis and Duotrope is the place to go for that.
For the technically inclined, this is powered by a 140 line perl script (including comments and whitespace) that downloads the RSS feed from Duotrope every 30 minutes or so and checks for new updates. Every new item, as determined by the feed’s guid, has a short url generated for it by way of is.gd, has its description shorted as necessary and is then posted to Twitter.
DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with Duotrope in any way. I’m just a fan of their service and have taken it upon myself to spread the word about them.
Still swamped with work and Clarion preparation, but I couldn’t help sharing this little ditty I just slapped together.
In the speculative fiction genre, the fen are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the readers, who read fiction, and the writers, who tell lies for a living. These are their stories.
Why yes, we do watch lots and lots of Law & Order. Why do you ask?
I’ve been sent word that I can publicly announce the news I’ve been sitting on since last week: I have been accepted into the 2010 Clarion Workshop.
More later, after the celebration has ended.
Believe it or not, I’m still a little under the weather. I’m beginning to suspect I had the hamthrax. Five weeks out and I’m just now starting to feel like myself again. All it really means is that I’m sleeping way more than usual, drinking a gallon of water a day, and a bit behind in my correspondence.
So better late than never, I’m happy to announce that I’ve applied to Clarion and Clarion West. These are kind of a big deal as far as writing workshops go. They receive hundreds of applicants every year and only a handful are accepted. The odds are not in my favor but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Even if I do get accepted, there are a lot of obstacles standing in my way. There’s the house for sale in Illinois and a few lingering divorce debts that must be paid before anything else. I’m working hard at that and things are moving in the right direction. Then there’s taking six weeks off of work. I think I can pull that off, but it means I’m going to be pulling a lot of long hours in the months beforehand to make up for it. A worthy sacrifice, if I get the call.
I only have one hard deadline coming up in March. The next quarter of Writers of the Future closes at the end of the month and I plan to have a third consecutive story ready for them. Aside from that I’ll be doing lots and lots of editing. I’m calling a moratorium on new stories until I get some of these drafts revised and into a submission-worthy state.
Good luck shout outs to my tribe mates, Christie and John, who also applied to Clarion. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for all of us.
February is coming to a close and I’m scrambling like mad. Clarion closes to applications on March 1st. One application story is done. I have a second one more or less ready, but I’m debating a last minute replacement.
I’m putting the grind wheel and polish to my as yet untitled story for the Scheherazade’s Facade anthology, due February 28th. It’s shaping up into something that makes me happy. I pushed myself when writing this and for that reason I’m also considering using it as my second Clarion story.
I’ll be getting back to schedule after these deadlines have passed. I’m behind on updating my goals and schedule but the progress I’ve made, despite being knocked on my ass for a few weeks, is satisfying.
My mom had reconstructive ankle surgery to correct some of long-term damage caused by polio so I spent the last few weeks with her, doing laundry and cooking and whatnot. I also took the opportunity to wear down my annual deductible and get a few lingering medical issues looked at. And while in Illinois, I picked up a rather nasty flu that has wiped me out completely.
Most of the effects of the flu are gone, knock on wood. My energy seems to be the last thing to return. I’ve been regularly sleeping 10-12 hours/day, which is a far cry from my usual 6-7. It’s cut into my writing time severely, including updates here and on twitter. I suspect I’ll be back to normal in a few more days and will be back to work on things. End of month deadlines that must be met, flu or no flu.
Not only is Kyle Cassidy a heck of a photographer, writer and teacher, he is also one hell of a nice guy. I had a lucky chance to meet and learn a few photography skills some months back. He learned that I was also a writer and offered to send me one of his extra fountain pens. I very nearly squeed.
I’ve been interested in fountain pens for as long as I can remember. When I was young I used some cheap, cartridge-filled pens on occasion but fell out of habit as I aged. I always admired fountain pens from afar, and lived vicariously through my friend Dierdre and her pen obsession. That pen from Kyle, an old Arnold sitting on the bladder transplant list, resparked that old passion. This past Christmas I received brethren to join my collection.
The awesome Kyle is running a contest on his blog and the lucky winners will also receive a nifty fountain pen that is in need of love and affection. Go there. Make a semi-anonymous post with a picture of your notebooks, assuming you’re like us and write longhand, as well as a small writing sample – a poem, a paragraph, a snappy retort, whatever.
